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Zuellig Pharma Digital & Data has launched ZP Metaverse, a first-of-its-kind healthcare metaverse experience that enhances existing pharmaceutical sales enablement and telemedicine experiences.
Prompted by the merger of B2B and B2C experiences to amplify patient value, the platform links its plant to patient digital twin, enabling a “connected and more accessible” healthcare journey.
In collaboration with software developer and digital transformation consultancy Palo IT, the B2C environment was built around three user experiences – a healthcare professional conducting consultations; a remote patient accessing healthcare services and a sales representative taking stock of inventory accompanied by e-detailing and sales data.
“Palo IT and Zuellig Pharma Digital & Data share the same philosophy of ‘using tech for good’, and for us, that means creating new worlds of experiences, like the metaverse, that extend Zuellig Pharma Digital & Data’s mission in keeping healthcare more accessible and affordable," said Vincent Desclaux, managing director of Singapore at Palo IT.
"This collaborative partnership is the start for us to recast the mould and set a new precedence in digital healthcare experiences."
Crucially, the ZP Metaverse aims to reconfigure the B2B2C healthcare journey in Asia by paving the way for a borderless healthcare universe with enhanced capabilities including greater interconnectivity and data integration across the healthcare value chain in a single environment.
Key outpatient services offered via the platform include real-time virtual consultation and diagnosis, which removes the need for long hours of queuing, and travelling for a first prognosis. This is especially targeted at patients who are immobile or based in remote locations.
“Ultimately, ZP Metaverse, fast-tracked by the accelerated digitalisation in the pharma industry, aims to enhance current healthcare experiences beyond the physical boundaries, and help make them more accessible and convenient,” said Daniel Laverick, chief digital and data officer of Zuellig Pharma.
“The interconnectivity – from plant to patient in ZP Metaverse, brings forth the opportunity to collect richer real-time data across multiple workstreams. This is where the pharma industry which has been traditionally manual and manpower-heavy, can now rethink the operating model for pharma and how healthcare processes can be made more effective and efficient.”
In addition, there are plans to integrate wearables data, and data from AI-enabled chatbot-based symptom checker – both of which would allow healthcare professionals (HCPs) to provide patients with more accurate and quicker diagnosis.
To ensure data security, patients’ health records are stored and transferred on the blockchain that allows “non-intrusive, cloud-agnostic” data exchange.
Integrations of Zuellig Pharma Digital & Data’s online pharmacy eZPharmacy and new telemedicine service extension eZHealth are also being explored to further a seamless end-to-end experience.
For sales representatives, the ZP Metaverse is set to enable borderless commercial operations including drug inventory reviews, pricing discussions, as well as e-commerce and analytics operations – all in a “gamified” experience. This allows them to minimise physical travel time and focus on value-added services such as e-detailing and sales strategy for clients.
Optimising warehouse operations
To improve warehouse performance, Zuellig Pharma Digital & Data is linking a digital twin of its warehouse to ZP Metaverse – integrating real-time inventory data from the physical warehouse, and continuously synchronising to ensure that the digital twin always has the most updated inventory information.
Outfitted with drones in the metaverse, the stocktaking and inventory management process can be automated. Products can be remotely monitored and managing personnel will be notified when the temperature of the environment deviates from its usual conditions.
With web3 integration, Zuellig Pharma Digital & Data’s eZTracker solution is backed by blockchain technology and can be integrated for better quality assurance and end-to-end traceability on the supply chain. Pharmaceutical products that might have gone missing or expired can also be traced and recalled.
“Beyond bringing the digital and physical realms of healthcare closer together, what we are addressing with ZP Metaverse is the siloed nature of much of the existing healthcare system, in order to deliver more joined-up or collaborative outcomes for our users,” added Preetham Nadig, head of Product and Engineering at Zuellig Pharma Digital and Data.
Zuellig Pharma also revealed future plans to include cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as accepted payment options for consultations and prescriptions.
