The life sciences industry emerges as the second-highest market in the adoption of 5G

HFS Surveyed around 200 executives across all the verticals to understand how the enterprises are planning to invest in emerging technologies. The study reveals interesting yet unsurprising data where the executives from the Life science industry agree they have major plans on investing in the adoption of the 5G.

Recent developments in the Life science industry such as robotic surgery, wireless medical devices used for patient monitoring and medical record management, clinical trial data management have created a huge opportunity for the adoption of 5G in the Life Science ecosystem. This will become one of the driving forces for the further adoption of digital technologies such as IoT, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence/Automation, 3D printing across the Life science industry.

• 5G’s capabilities of seamless communication and faster signal speed, provide drastically increased connectivity between the doctor and the machine during the robotic surgeries.
• A greater number of devices can be connected to the 5G network. With this ability, accurate and high-quality real-time data can be transmitted among the multiple wireless medical devices and with the medical professionals in a faster way.
• Ultra-Low latency capability of 5G network combined with other emerging technologies such as IoT, Industry 4.0, will become a game-changer among the pharma and medical device manufacturing companies, where the companies can manage and operate smartly accessing the real-time actionable insights across the value chain.
• Deployment of 5G networks creates an opportunity to move signals faster, sharing the accurate clinical trials data, which in turn helps the Research and Development team to handle the real-time situations in an effective manner.
• The supply chain across the life science industry including Pharma and medical device manufacturing can be easily tracked with its super-fast connectivity and the distribution of the medical supplies can be ensured in real-time.

With all the hype of evolvement of 5G in the Life Science ecosystem, in reality, the enterprises are still worried about the adoption due to its notable shortcomings.

• Combining the legacy applications with the new 5G technology is definitely a challenging task. The conflict of 5G frequencies with legacy applications will result in inaccurate readings.
• Cybersecurity aspects of 5G in MedTech and BioTech are still not settled. 5G network with its higher bandwidth and ability to connect multiple devices connected to the network, makes it prone to cybersecurity attacks.
• Life Science industry is strictly regulated by government bodies. Regulations within the country and among other countries related to data sharing have to be watched out for. Building the 5G infrastructure raises the concern of regulations related to radiation emission across countries.
• The transition will require a new infrastructure that can support 5G technology, thus enterprises will require to make investments in the infrastructure during the adoption stage.

The Bottom Line: Enterprises look for long-term partnerships, that can help them throughout their 5G deployment journey creating a sustainable ecosystem and revenue growth opportunities.

5G technology is creating a wave in the digital transformation of the Life science industry. Combined with other emerging technologies, 5G will easily create a faster and more secure infrastructure, letting the enterprises deal with real-time disruptions such as Covid-19 in a faster and more accurate manner. To meet the expectations of the enterprises, service providers must reskill their teams, assure data security, handle regulatory concerns. Post-deployment or the implementation issues should be addressed timely to maintain the long-term relationship with their clients.