Blog series #3 : Pharma’s rol in making it work

This blog explores why collaboration between these partners is essential and how pharma can help innovations bridge the gap to unlock the system-wide adoption necessary to secure healthcare’s sustainable future.

To anchor the series in real-world experience, we spoke with multiple innovation industry leaders who are responsible for driving digital transformation and value-based partnerships

This article is the final instalment of a three-part series, in which we will explore:

1. How industry can support innovations that enable sustainable healthcare
2. The value that industry can create across the healthcare ecosystem
3. The actions stakeholders should take to make these solutions work in practice

Making it work

We have established pharma’s unique position to enable HealthTech innovation and the significant value it can create across the ecosystem. But, if the capability alignment and added value are so clear, then why is it not happening?

Research from 2023 shows that only 13% of partnerships between digital health startups and industry are successful, citing 1) lack of clear partnership strategy, 2) slow decision-making and 3) mismatched expectations as key reasons for low success rates1. So the critical question becomes, how do we make it work?

WHAT PAYERS MUST DO: CREATING THE FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS

Before meaningful partnerships can thrive, payers must create explicit funding mechanisms for proven HealthTech innovations. This is essential; without compensation for bringing these solutions to market, pharma will not shift its business model, and even the most promising collaborations will fail to deliver lasting impact.

Payers need to:

1. Fund proven tech innovation explicitly

Provide premium, separate payments for validated HealthTech solutions in their initial years to support adoption, similar to how new medical procedures receive special consideration before becoming standard practice

1. Establish clear transition pathways

Define transparent criteria for when innovations move from premium reimbursement to integration within standard payment structures (such as including digital monitoring costs within comprehensive procedure payments like hip replacements)

1. Invest proactively in HealthTech transformation

Realise the benefit that HealthTech innovation can bring to the care ecosystem and provide financial backing to drive the change. The Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital’s €17 million commitment³ from health insurers for digital transformation exemplifies how payers can drive innovation adoption rather than simply responding to it

1. Create systematic evaluation frameworks

Unlike pharmaceuticals, which benefit from established pathways where regulators determine efficacy and safety while HTAbs evaluate cost-effectiveness, HealthTech lacks clear reimbursement standards. Payers must help establish these frameworks

Without payer leadership in creating sustainable funding models, partnerships between pharma, providers, and innovators will remain tactical rather than transformative.

WHAT PHARMA MUST DO: RESHAPING THE BUSINESS MODEL

The answer requires a fundamental shift in how pharma operates, moving from a product-centric to an ecosystem-centric approach.

The fundamental barrier lies deeper than operational challenges; it’s embedded in how pharma views its core business. Industry still sees medicines as its sole business model, while technology is treated more as a tactical service or indirect revenue driver². This fuels mistrust among healthcare stakeholders, who perceive these initiatives as mechanisms to drive drug sales rather than healthcare solutions in their own right. This also means that once drugs reach their loss of exclusivity (LOE), investments in supporting technology also drop dramatically.

Pharma must treat HealthTech as a genuine revenue stream with standalone value propositions that don’t depend on drug sales for justification. Key actions include:

1. Establish internal teams & streamlined governance

Build cross-functional HealthTech teams with R&D, commercial, regulatory, and market access expertise. Grant direct senior leadership access and decision-making authority for rapid partnership execution.

2. Develop clear strategic partnership frameworks
   Rather than ad-hoc collaborations, pharma must develop comprehensive partnership playbooks with defined success metrics, governance structures, resource commitments, and milestone-based decision points to ensure alignment and momentum.
3. Develop strategic roadmaps

System-wide transformation won’t happen without a clear plan. Prioritize coordinated HealthTech investments that address major healthcare bottlenecks rather than pursuing isolated pilot programs. Sequence partnerships systematically for maximum impact.

4. Deploy strategic investment vehicles

Use accelerators, venture partnerships, and co-development models that balance pharma’s risk management with HealthTech’s agility needs. Structured pharma-digital health partnership programs demonstrate significant success: PharmStar achieved 99% graduation rates across 91 startups, securing $900M+ in funding and 100+ pharma deals⁴.

5. Establish compliance processes

Define clear compliance frameworks across the full product lifecycle from development through deployment. These must be in place from the start to facilitate full scaling of HealthTech solutions that meet stringent data requirements.

6. Champion public-private partnerships

Collaborate with “health providers, payers, and governments to shape policy to create tech enabling environments”. Pharma should actively participate in public-private initiatives that establish interoperability standards, data sharing frameworks, and reimbursement models for HealthTech solutions.

7. Start early in the development process

“Integrate digital endpoints and companion diagnostics from Phase I trials rather than treating digital health as a post-launch consideration”. This generates regulatory-grade evidence for digital-drug combinations while building stakeholder awareness and confidence.

8. Embrace ecosystem leadership

Act as a connector by forging deep, long-term collaborations with providers, payers, tech innovators, and patient groups. Cultivate trust and established aligned, clear incentives that motivate all groups to act with a shared purpose.

BUILDING MISSING CAPABILITIES

Pharma must also invest in critical capabilities where gaps exist. While proven strengths in bringing drug innovations to market provide a solid foundation, companies need to deepen HealthTech-specific expertise, including comprehensive understanding of digital technologies, their potential, limitations, and design principles.

Medical affairs teams require training to deepen understanding of patient pathways and clinical operations, complementing their typically strong scientific expertise. Given the project-based nature of this capability-building, specialized consultancies often provide effective support.

Furthermore, establishing robust digital compliance capabilities is critical for navigating the complex regulatory landscape surrounding digital health, including expertise in data privacy, security, and evolving industry standards.

THE NATURAL LIFECYCLE OF PHARMA’S ENABLING ROLE

Pharma excels at translating scientific breakthroughs into products that become standard of care. However, once a medicine or HealthTech is widely adopted and patients have real access, further pharma-led development adds little value. At this stage, generics or tech companies can efficiently take over, lowering costs and freeing up resources for future innovation.

This lifecycle mirrors how pharma’s role should function in HealthTech innovation: industry drives true innovation and adoption, then steps aside so providers and tech firms can manage business as usual. This transition ensures that costs are contained and resources are continually reinvested in the next wave of advances, keeping pharma’s expertise focused where it delivers the greatest impact for the health system (see Figure 2).

WHAT HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS MUST DO

For pharma’s enabling role to succeed, healthcare providers must also fundamentally adapt:

1. Adopt long-term innovation mindsets

Recognize that embracing innovation is essential for organizational sustainability, not just short-term experiments. Even when capacity is stretched, prioritizing innovation is fundamental for driving long-term cost-efficiencies and productivity gains.

1. Secure dedicated innovation funding 

Given hospitals’ fine operating margins (1-2%), internal capital for innovation projects is severely limited. External stakeholders like pharma and health insurers must be leveraged as sources of structural capital.

1. Engage proactively with innovation partners

Embrace new HealthTech solutions and co-creation opportunities, recognizing pharma as a strategic partner rather than just a supplier. This means actively participating in pilot programs and providing honest feedback about real-world implementation challenges.

1. Invest in skills and change management

Prioritize upskilling staff and managing organizational change to maximize benefits from HealthTech platforms, recognizing that successful digital and AI-driven transformation requires continuous education and training.

1. Collaborate on data and value creation

Work with industry partners to make datasets accessible for research and innovation while defining clear metrics for value and impact, including participation in real-world evidence studies.

WHAT INNOVATORS MUST DO

To complete the ecosystem, innovators must also step up:

1. Be transparent and set clear expectations

Establish realistic goals at the outset and maintain transparent, ongoing communication with pharma partners. Ensure that both sides are aligned on outcomes, timelines, and responsibilities to foster trust and avoid misunderstandings.

1. Collaborate as strategic partners

Engage pharma early and embrace strategic partnerships. Be open to flexible partnership models (e.g., co-development, co-commercialization, or licensing) that match the project’s scale and both parties’ risk appetites.

3. Design for scale and interoperability

Engineer solutions that can be easily integrated across diverse healthcare systems and can scale efficiently as adoption grows. Prioritize interoperability to maximize ease-of-use and expand reach within pharma’s global operations.

4. Prioritise regulatory alignment

Stay ahead of evolving HealthTech regulations and work closely with pharma’s regulatory teams to ensure solutions meet compliance requirements. Invest in data privacy, security frameworks, and quality management systems that match pharmaceutical industry standards.

1. Foster continuous improvement

Products should be continually updated, refined and optimised based on real-world usage and feedback to ensure increasing product efficiency whist remaining cost-effective, secure, and user-friendly as needs and regulations evolve.

ALIGNING INCENTIVES FOR SUCCESS

Even the best reimbursement structure won’t sustain large-scale adoption unless all players (payers, providers, pharma, and innovators) have shared incentives to collaborate, improve outcomes, and drive efficiency⁵:

• Move beyond traditional, siloed rewards: Current structures reward providers for volume, payers for short-term savings, pharma for drug sales, and innovators for features, not aligned system value.
• Adopt outcome-based payment structures: Link compensation for all parties to measurable improvements in patient outcomes, using real-world evidence and agreed metrics that reflect both clinical and societal value.
• Embrace risk-sharing partnerships: Structure agreements so that financial risk and benefit are shared across stakeholders (“skin in the game” for everyone when an innovation succeeds or falls short).
• Share savings from efficiency gains: Create models where reduced total cost of care—for example, from fewer hospitalizations or streamlined care pathways—translates into direct reward for all contributing partners, not just individual silos.

The result is a transition from tactical, short-lived digital pilots to enduring, system-wide improvements. Only when every stakeholder stands to gain from improved outcomes and operational excellence will truly sustainable HealthTech-enabled healthcare become possible.

CONCLUSION: THE PATH FORWARD

True healthcare transformation depends on more than breakthrough technology; it requires fundamentally restructuring how all stakeholders approach HealthTech as a core business opportunity rather than a tactical add-on.

The critical insight is that transformation must begin with payers creating sustainable funding frameworks, followed by coordinated action from pharma, providers, and innovators. By treating HealthTech as a core business line with transparent value propositions, establishing clear regulatory and reimbursement pathways, and aligning incentives across all stakeholders, the industry can move beyond the current 13% partnership success rate to create genuinely transformative collaborations.

The companies that successfully make this transition with will secure their position as indispensable partners in healthcare’s sustainable future.

HOW VINTURA CAN HELP

At Vintura, we can help orchestrate these important partnerships to ensure success. We bring deep expertise in stakeholder alignment, operational change management, and strategic transformation to support your organisation’s journey, from facilitating neutral, strategic partnerships, to designing collaborative governance and business models, to navigating the cultural shifts needed for sustainable change.

We invite you to reach out and share your experiences, challenges, and insights.  Let’s connect and feel free to reach out to Bas Amesz or Peter Blanshard. Explore how we can work together to unlock the system-wide adoption necessary for healthcare’s sustainable future.

Your perspective matters: join the conversation and help shape the path forward.

Our blogs in this series

This article is the final instalment of a three-part series, in which we explored:

Blog #1 How industry can support innovations that enable sustainable healthcare

Blog #2 The value that industry can create across the healthcare ecosystem

Blog # 3 The actions stakeholders should take to make these solutions work in practice

References:

1. 2023. Most partnerships in digital health fail. Why? Available at: https://research2guidance.com/most-partnerships-in-digital-health-fail-why/

2. Zühlke. 2024. Creating revenue through digital health. Available at: https://www.zuehlke.com/en/insights/creating-revenue-through-digital-health

3. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. 2025. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek krijgt groen licht voor digitale zorgtransformatie via IZA-aanvraag. Available at: https://www.avl.nl/nieuwsberichten/2025/antoni-van-leeuwenhoek-krijgt-groen-licht-voor-digitale-zorgtransformatie-via-iza-aanvraag/

4. 2025. PharmStars Digital Health Accelerator. Available at: https://www.pharmstars.com/

5. PLOS Your Say. 2024. Why do Incentives Matter? The Role of Incentives in Driving Digital Health Adoption Worldwide. Available at: https://yoursay.plos.org/2024/03/why-do-incentives-matter-the-role-of-incentives-in-driving-digital-health-adoption-worldwide/