Navigating the AI-Driven Transformation of a Pharmaceutical Enterprise

What elements have positioned Darnytsia as a trailblazer in European pharma innovation? What is the significance of Tietoevry Create’s contribution to enhancing pharma intelligence and automation? How do pharmaceutical companies discern emerging trends, select the best-fitting technology partners, and leverage AI to meet their unique goals? 

Serhii Kolchyk, Head of Analytics and Digital Innovation at Darnytsia, delves into the tech evolution of the pharma giant, marked by close collaboration with engineers from Tietoevry Create (formerly Infopulse). In this interview, Serhii highlights Darnytsia’s unwavering commitment to innovation, the strategic integration of AI, and its visionary approach to transforming the pharma industry.  

Transparent Next-gen Innovations 

While many organizations opt to conceal their tech breakthroughs, Darnytsia believes that sharing achievements and experiences openly nurtures a digitally savvy community of partners and customers, and such an approach generates mutual gains.  

– What was the reason behind such transparency and willingness to share your experience openly? 

“We believe that by driving digital culture forward, we will grow, and so will our partners and customers. By encouraging data maturity across the entire ecosystem, we build a stronger foundation for adopting advanced AI solutions, ultimately creating greater value for all stakeholders. We openly share our solutions and achievements. Many of our solutions go public through our partners, like Microsoft and OpenAI. It’s no secret what pharma companies can digitize and how. Yet, to implement these solutions effectively, businesses need qualified integrators like Tietoevry Create, and an environment ready to embrace and operationalize such transformative technologies”.  

– How does this philosophy benefit your enterprise?   

“We are committed to enhancing the data maturity of our community, believing that a more robust ecosystem enables solutions of even greater value. Next year, we aim to reach out directly to end users. For this, the entire chain must be AI-ready – from solutions for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to apps for patients. If only we have the expertise and tools while others are not prepared, end-users will ultimately resist innovations. That’s why we do our best to raise tech awareness and friendliness among our partners, audience, customers, and end consumers, with a clear vision of the results we aim to achieve”.  

Selecting Collaborators for Digital Innovations   

Darnytsia focuses on technical expertise and a cooperative mindset when selecting tech partners. For challenging projects, the pharma giant assesses potential collaborators based on their proven track record in delivering relevant solutions and their capability to quickly expand teams when necessary. 

– What essential criteria guide Darnytsia in choosing a technology partner? 

“The process is quite straightforward: we brainstorm ideas with our potential partners and assess their ability to bring these ideas to life. If a partner has completed similar projects before, we know they are more likely to succeed with a project for us. If they lack prior experience or have challenges with team resources, their capability to deliver the solution quickly and effectively is limited. That is why the Infopulse team, which is now a part of Tietoevry Create, wins nearly 100% of our projects: you have a skilled team that either has experience with similar solutions or is quick to adopt new initiatives from our side. You can implement solutions that have just entered the market. We’re often able to test and deploy a pilot project within a week or so to understand its potential and determine the next steps”.  

Digital Transformation at Darnytsia: Creating a Data-Mature Environment for Intelligent Operations 

Building on a targeted strategy, Darnytsia embarked on its modernization journey by establishing a data-mature ecosystem powered by cloud tech. 

Harnessing the Cloud  

The digital shift began in 2018 when the company migrated its infrastructure to the cloud, overcoming limitations in physical resources while enhancing cost efficiency and setting the stage for future growth. Adopting Microsoft Azure further boosted operational performance, ensuring compliance with standards like GDPR, and strengthening data security – all vital to sustaining ongoing digital evolution.

 

Migrating SAP to Azure: Achieving 30% Performance Gains   

In the next phase of its digital transformation, Darnytsia migrated its SAP systems to the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Our experts initially established a pilot SAP setup on Azure and, following a successful proof of concept, scaled the project for full implementation. With unparalleled support from Microsoft, this initiative became the first large-scale SAP migration on the local market. The transition led to a 30% performance boost, reduced storage expenses by 60%, and cut the total cost of ownership by 50% through the use of Microsoft Azure Reserved Instances and Azure Hybrid Benefit. 

By modernizing its legacy IT systems into a scalable and secure cloud environment, Darnytsia is now well-equipped to deploy advanced data processing solutions.  

Introducing the First AI-Powered Innovation: Data Analytics Bot   

– What sparked the initiative to address business challenges using Artificial Intelligence?   

“It all began with a transformation in data management. Four years ago, the company decided to implement data analytics based on Microsoft technologies (including Power BI and the Azure data storage platform). For AI, it’s impossible to introduce advanced models without laying the groundwork – AI reveals insights that other tools simply cannot. We needed to build a series of steps to make AI integration feasible. We created a data warehouse and implemented new systems capable of delivering large volumes of data quickly and efficiently”.  

– What was the primary issue you aimed to resolve with the data analytics bot? 

“We developed metrics to analyze key business indicators, building a KPI structure where 70 owner-level KPIs expand into 300 performance indicators across each production line. With the new SAP system, we now generate monthly financial reports on profits and losses for each of Darnytsia's 500 products. Managing this data load – terabytes each month – requires algorithms that can quickly process and interpret it effectively. Over the past three years, we’ve mastered data visualization. However, human expertise is still essential for trend analysis – whether by a product owner or an experienced analyst. Our analytics department, with eight specialists, manages over 100 dashboards across 15 areas of analysis, so we needed to boost efficiency.”  

The data analytics chatbot to manage the described challenges was developed within a month. It inspired Darnytsia and assured the company of our expertise, giving the confidence for future collaboration. As Serhii states, “The project piloted the idea of converting business language into SQL queries and returning the necessary data in a convenient format – I call this bot our "junior analyst." You can simply tell it what you need, like "show sales trends and give me an analysis," and it performs just as well as a junior analyst, but completes a task in one minute instead of an hour. Even when I receive a similar request from the CEO, I confidently relay it to the bot, get an answer, and forward it directly. The insights are well-structured, business-focused, and easy to understand”.   

Shortly, the solution is planned to integrate CRM data, empowering Darnytsia’s field team which is about 200 employees. Focused on the over-the-counter (OTC) segment, this team actively promotes the company’s products in healthcare facilities and pharmacies. They educate healthcare providers and pharmacists on the effectiveness, benefits, safety, and usage guidelines of Darnytsia’s medications, while also monitoring product availability, enhancing brand awareness, driving demand, and building customer trust. 

– How does the AI bot enhance performance beyond the current CRM system? 

“I deem it to be similar to Copilot. We also aim to add capabilities for file processing. When the tool can analyze presentations, track sales dynamics, and monitor visits to doctors, it will become a more useful and productive resource for our employees than the current CRM interface. Instead of manually searching and analyzing information in the CRM, employees can simply ask the bot and get answers quickly. We are also piloting a video avatar that can provide responses, slides, or other resources”.  

Solution for Accurate Sales Forecasting   

In early 2024, our data experts introduced an ML-driven sales forecasting solution that outputs over 95% accuracy in predicting sales across four key market segments: Total Market, Top 10 Drug Producers, Drug Categories, and Competitive Drug Groups. The primary challenge was meeting the high accuracy requirements in a highly volatile local market – impacted by geopolitical tensions, economic fluctuations, and unpredictable domestic and international migration trends. Despite these challenges, our data scientists conducted comprehensive research, experimented with multiple prediction models, and delivered a fully operational solution in under one week. 

– How is the Sales Forecasting Solution currently helping your enterprise?   

“The solution profoundly improved our business processes, providing exceptionally high prediction accuracy. It helped us plan the current year’s budget to match our forecast precisely. The solution predicted a 13% market growth, while the business team expected 20%. The machine forecast proved correct, prompting us to set a target of 15% growth internally, as we always aim to struggle for more. This approach allowed us to understand targets and strategies for surpassing projections. Despite market instability, war, and power outages, we’ve successfully maintained a balanced budget and met all market indicators”.  

– Are you considering using the solution for other tasks?   

“We have already adapted this technology to forecast electricity expenses. As a strategic infrastructure facility, Darnytsia has access to imported electricity, which is significantly more expensive, and the regulators require precise usage forecasts to pay for it upfront and avoid exceeding limits. The forecasting solution helped us avoid potential supply cuts and overspending over the summer season, which was quite risky in terms of interrupting the power supply. The technology is effective, and we plan to extend it to other business needs. While mentally prepared, we still need to address some technical integration challenges”.  

Data Matching Solution   

Integrating data from various sources is a popular use of AI and Big Data. Our latest initiative for Darnytsia, the Data Matching Solution, seamlessly aligns drug information between the company’s internal systems and external reports from partner pharmacies. This tool achieves over 96% accuracy for matching drug names and exceeds 85% for pharmacy names and addresses. It can match two drug tables containing 300-400 records in less than a minute and process three pharmacy tables within ten minutes. The automated process eliminates human error, speeds up data analysis and decision-making, and reduces both labor and costs. 

– What tangible benefits does this level of automation provide for the business?   

“This solution literally helped save lives – we process data from hundreds of pharmacy networks nationwide. Previously, a dedicated person handled data matching manually – a highly stressful and responsible job with a high risk of business-impacting errors. Now, it is all done by an AI algorithm, quickly and accurately”.  

– What other use cases can be addressed by this solution?   

“We also implemented the solution in the regulatory department, where they develop instructions for medications. Previously, when drafts were sent to designers for finalization, the returned instructions sometimes differed from the original data. They required extensive proofreading and multiple review cycles to catch the inconsistencies. Adjusting the data matching algorithm for this task took us only a few hours, and now this process is fully automated. Thus, optimizing such routine processes has a significant impact. We also plan to address other challenges with this solution in the regulatory and quality control departments”.  

Overcoming Resistance to AI: Cultivating the Acceptance of Change Inside the Organization?   

Even beneficial changes often face pushback. With AI, employees should enhance their skills and adapt to new tools before fully appreciating the benefits. Addressing the resistance among employees is crucial for successful digital transformation. 

– How does your team engage with new AI solutions? How do you enhance your employees’ tech proficiency? 

“Realizing that one or two people in a department can’t drive change across 1,200 employees, we started an AI Ambassador Club with proactive individuals from each department. These ambassadors help identify processes to optimize and find partners for quick implementation.  

One recent solution we developed together is a document bot that can handle large volumes of internal documents and quickly answer questions. It’s been highly effective in onboarding and answering questions about company policies, benefits, and more. After setting up a document library with contributions from regulatory, HR, and finance, the bot now provides value, as reflected in rising weekly usage stats. When ambassadors requested a translation feature, you implemented a translation bot within a week, which is now actively used by our employees.  

However, some challenges remain. At the moment, the bot doesn’t translate illustrations into documents, and some employees still resist using new tools. Ambassadors will help address these challenges by educating our personnel and showing them the benefits, e.g., saving hours of manual work and reducing burnout. An assistant for legal staff who quickly verifies document compliance has saved weeks of working time and simplified processes. Overall, increasing tech awareness helps scale and adopt these solutions more effectively”.  

Darnytsia’s Commitment to Social Healthcare  

Leveraging advanced technologies, Darnytsia enhances its business operations and also initiates vital projects for social healthcare. 

– You said that end customers also benefit from tech innovations. How exactly?  

“We aim to develop a patient-focused solution that will improve health awareness, supporting patients in effectively managing their treatment. Last year, we launched the Strong Hearts pilot program within the company to tackle cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in Ukraine. Out of 600,000 deaths in 2021, 400,000 were due to conditions like hypertension, strokes, and heart attacks. The pilot program, offering free medications and diagnostics, engaged only half of our employees, 60% of which were hypertensive, with many unaware of their condition. In rural areas and among older populations, awareness is even lower. The statistics highlight the need for a supportive program or app to guide patients through their treatment. We plan to launch such a program, as Darnytsia’s portfolio of medications can extend lives and improve the quality of life for those affected. Such a solution may also address PTSD, offering dietary and medication guidance and ultimately improving life and productivity”.  

– To conclude, do you believe today’s pharmaceutical manufacturers can succeed without embracing digital innovations?   

“On a certain level, yes, but the potential for growth without productivity improvements is very limited. They say AI won’t replace people – rather, those who use it effectively will outpace those who don’t. These will be specialists who skillfully leverage AI assistants for communication, chat responses, analytics, reporting, etc. for vastly improved productivity”.  

We are grateful to Darnytsia and Serhii Kolchyk for showcasing their groundbreaking experience in AI-driven innovations and providing invaluable insights into modernizing the pharmaceutical industry. We are happy to be part of Darnytsia’s technological journey and eagerly anticipate continuing our partnership to implement even greater advancements together.