The Agile Mindset: Innovating Pharma With Design Thinking

When people think of design thinking, iconic brands like Apple, Tesla, or even Kayak come to mind. Apple focused on designing experiences, not just products. Tesla reimagined the driving experience while Kayak transformed travel booking into a seamless process. These companies didn’t just create products—they revolutionized entire industries by deeply understanding user needs and continually refining their solutions. This approach—empathizing with the user, iterating based on feedback, and delivering solutions that truly resonate—is the core of design thinking. Yet, despite its success in sectors like automotive and travel, this methodology remains underutilized in the pharmaceutical and life sciences fields, where it should be a cornerstone—because, ultimately, healthcare is about enhancing lives and well-being. Design thinking offers a powerful way to develop more patient-centered solutions, elevate care experiences, and improve health outcomes.

Understanding Design Thinking and the Agile Mindset

At its core, design thinking is about understanding and empathizing with the user. The methodology encourages us to look beyond the obvious and delve deeper into the human experience. This process works because it’s flexible, iterative, and deeply connected to real-world needs. In industries like tech and consumer goods, where customer satisfaction is paramount, design thinking has already made a significant impact.

However, this approach is most effective when coupled with an agile mindset. Embracing agility means being open to change and seeing failure as a learning opportunity rather than a setback. In pharma, this involves developing solutions with incomplete information, testing them in real-world scenarios, and refining them based on feedback. This iterative process is key to creating innovations that resonate with patients and healthcare providers.

My introduction to this methodology didn’t come through direct application but by witnessing its powerful results firsthand. Years ago, while leading a sales team in the launch of a new product in the crowded Type 2 Diabetes market, we aimed to expand the use of our therapeutic class by shifting the treatment paradigm and highlighting perceived clinical benefits based on standard research. However, a competitor soon introduced an autoinjector device that took a different approach. Rather than focusing solely on clinical outcomes, they addressed an emotional insight—specifically, the widespread discomfort with needles. Their product not only met clinical needs but also significantly enhanced the patient experience, quickly surpassing ours in the market. It was a stark reminder that while a strong clinical strategy is essential, truly connecting with patients on an emotional level is just as critical.

This seemingly simple innovation, which cleverly hid the needle from view, directly addressed a significant pain point, making the injection process less intimidating and more user-friendly. The impact was immediate and profound. The competitor’s product quickly outpaced ours in the market, not because it was more advanced, but because it connected with patients on a human level.

This was a wake-up call for me. It underscored the importance of understanding the patient experience beyond clinical outcomes and technical specifications. I realized that by adopting a mindset focused on empathy and iteration, we could fundamentally transform how we approached product development in pharma. This experience ignited my interest in exploring how these principles could be applied more broadly in our industry to create solutions that resonate more deeply with those we serve.

Why Design Thinking and Agility Matter in Healthcare

Healthcare is unique in its complexity and the critical nature of its outcomes. Traditional methods often rely on static research snapshots, which, while useful, can miss the nuances of patient experiences. Design thinking, when combined with an agile mindset, offers a more dynamic approach. By refining problems and solutions together (or by iterating on the problem and solution simultaneously) through smaller-scale ethnographic research “sprints” and using the power of observation to supplement stated needs/concerns, we can land on solutions that truly address patient needs.

Incorporating this methodology into healthcare processes allows us to improve patient experiences and develop more effective solutions. The emphasis on collaboration and iteration ensures that what we create resonates with those who use it. The ability to adapt quickly to new information and changing circumstances is crucial in an industry where patient needs can evolve rapidly. Ultimately, this combination enhances care and drives better health outcomes.

Overcoming Barriers to Adoption

Despite the clear benefits, implementing design thinking and an agile approach in healthcare comes with its own watch-outs. Financial constraints, for instance, can make it difficult to justify the upfront costs of multiple iterative rounds of research, even when sample sizes are small. In an industry where every dollar must be accounted for, the time and resources required for iterative processes can seem like a luxury.

Time limitations are another major hurdle. The healthcare sector is driven by the urgency to deliver results, often underpinned by regulatory timelines and the critical nature of patient outcomes. The iterative nature of design thinking, if not implemented appropriately, may seem too time-consuming compared to more traditional, linear approaches.

Moreover, there’s cultural resistance. Many stakeholders in healthcare are deeply rooted in traditional methods and may view design thinking as a radical departure from established practices. This resistance is often compounded by a lack of understanding of what an agile mindset truly entails and how to implement it in highly regulated industries like pharma. Stakeholders accustomed to clear, evidence-based practices might find the more exploratory and iterative aspects of these approaches to be a leap of faith.

We encountered many of these barriers when we first attempted to follow a design-based approach in vaccines several years later. Reflecting on it now, I believe we could have worked faster and more effectively if we had more experience with the methodology. To overcome these barriers, it’s crucial to educate and engage stakeholders, demonstrating the long-term value of these methodologies. This starts with small pilot projects that allow stakeholders to see the tangible benefits in action. It’s also essential to build a culture that values innovation, where employees feel safe to experiment and fail. Leaders must champion this mindset by recognizing and rewarding efforts to innovate, even when immediate success isn’t achieved.

Opportunities for Integration Across Pharma

There are numerous opportunities to integrate design thinking and an agile mindset across the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, redesigning the clinical trial experience to make it more patient-friendly, leveraging employee feedback as a sounding board for pilots, new concepts, and using smaller-scale ethnographic research “sprints” to refine problems and solutions simultaneously. By refining problems and solutions together through live, iterative research and using the power of observation to supplement stated needs/concerns, we can land on solutions that truly address patient needs.

Looking Ahead

The future of pharma lies in focusing more on patient experience and integrating these methodologies into every stage of the product life cycle. By doing so, we can create solutions that not only address clinical needs but also enhance the entire patient journey.

The opportunity is vast. When embraced fully, these approaches can transform how we approach healthcare, leading to better patient outcomes and driving business success. Centering every innovation around the patient will drive the next wave of breakthroughs in healthcare.