Historically, drug makers have been one of the most reluctant groups to seek out and implement new information technologies. As Ryan McBride explains at FierceBiotechIT, however, that is beginning to change. He writes that "one prime example of this shift is the industry's well-documented affection for Apple's ($AAPL) iPad. Pharma companies are buying the tablets by the thousands, doling them out to sales reps and executives, some of whom probably already own the popular devices."
McBride points to Zackary King, senior vice president and general manager of Trinity Pharma Solutions,
who says that 75% of his company's customers have adopted the iPad. King commented,
"Their adoption of the iPad has been amazingly fast. And I think it's mostly driven by end-users. People like you and I bought iPads and iPhones years ago. When you work for a big company, you wonder why they can't enable your iPad or your iPhone. I think the demand actually came from the users, unlike in the past where technology decisions came from the IT department."
King's Waltham, MA, company provides analytics and business intelligence software for commercial organizations in biopharma and medical devices. He thanks the iPad for helping to open pharma executives' eyes to web-based software like Trinity's:
"I think, with the iPad, one of the amazing things that we are seeing is that it's driving the adoption of SaaS (software as a service). These tablets aren't really made for heavy local power applications, so most everything has to be delivered via the Internet."