Inside the AI-Driven Evolution of a Pharma Leader

Originally published: December 30, 2024 Updated: January 08, 2025

As part of its digital transformation journey, Darnytsia pharmaceutical company has embraced a uniquely open and transparent approach to innovation, sharing their insights, success stories, and solutions to a broad community.

How has Darnytsia become a pioneer of innovations in the European Pharma industry? How does the company “feel trends”, choose tech partners, and make AI truly serve business needs?

Serhii Kolchyk, Head of Analytics and Digital Innovation at Darnytsia, shares insights into the company’s tech journey in partnership with Infopulse. Here, Serhii discusses Darnytsia’s commitment to innovation, strategic implementation of AI, and the company’s vision for the industry’s tech modernization.

Embracing Transparency in Digital Innovation

While many companies choose to keep their technological advancements under wraps, Darnytsia has taken a different route. The company openly shares its achievements and experiences, believing that fostering a digitally aware community of partners and clients brings mutual benefits.

– Why have you chosen to be open in your communication and share expertise with others?

We believe that by driving digital culture forward, not only will we grow, but so will our partners and customers. By encouraging data maturity across the entire ecosystem, we help 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 Infopulse, and an environment ready to embrace and operationalize such transformative technologies.

Serhii Kolchyk

Head of Analytics and Digital Innovation at Darnytsia

– What does this approach give to business?

“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 reject these solutions. 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”.

Choosing Partners for Digital Solutions

Darnytsia selects their partners based on their expertise and a collaborative approach. For complex projects, the company evaluates partners’ capabilities based on their relevant experience and the ability to scale teams quickly.

– What are the key criteria for choosing a tech partner for Darnytsia? Why Infopulse?

“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 Darnytsia. If they lack prior experience or have challenges with team resources, it limits their capability to deliver the solution quickly and effectively. That is why Infopulse wins nearly 100% of our projects: they have a skilled team that either has experience with similar solutions or is quick to adopt new initiatives from our side. Infopulse 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 Revolution at Darnytsia: Data-Driven Culture for Intelligent Business

Following their focused approach, the company started modernization by preparing a data-mature environment relying on cloud technologies.

Embracing the Cloud Infrastructure

Darnytsia's digital transformation began in 2018 by migrating its infrastructure to the cloud. This shift addressed limitations in physical resources, improved cost efficiency, and laid the groundwork for future growth. Moving to Microsoft Azure further enhanced Darnytsia’s operations, aligning with industry compliance standards like GDPR and supporting ongoing digital evolution. Cloud migration not only boosted efficiency but also fortified data security.

SAP to Azure Migration: 30% Performance Boos as a Result

The collaboration between Infopulse and Darnytsia was expanded with our next project – migrating Darnytsia’s SAP systems to the Azure cloud. Our specialists developed the pilot infrastructure of SAP in Microsoft Azure and, after approval of PoC results, proceeded with the full-scale implementation. The project was conducted with unprecedented support from Microsoft Ukraine, and it was the first SAP migration to the cloud of such scale on the Ukrainian market.

By migrating legacy IT systems to a modern, scalable & secure cloud infrastructure, Darnytsia has become fully prepared to implement intelligent data processing mechanisms.

First AI-Powered Solution: Data Analytics Bot

– What was the starting point in addressing business needs with AI?

“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 main challenge you wanted to address 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 that would manage the described challenges was developed within a month. It inspired Darnytsia and assured the company of Infopulse’s 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 does a task in one minute instead of thirty. Even when I receive a 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”.

The solution will soon be injected with the data from the CRM system to help Darnytsia’s field team (200 specialists). The field team focuses on the over-the-counter (OTC) segment, promoting the company’s products in healthcare institutions and pharmacies. They educate healthcare providers and pharmacists on the effectiveness, benefits, and safety of Darnytsia’s medications and specific usage guidelines. Additionally, they monitor the availability of products in pharmacies, build awareness around Darnytsia’s offerings, and, in doing so, encourage demand and foster consumer trust.

– What advantages does the AI bot provide in comparison with just using the CRM as it is?

“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”.

Accurate Sales Predictions for Up to 18 Months Ahead

At the beginning of 2024, Infopulse data engineers implemented a machine learning-based sales forecasting solution to predict sales with 95% accuracy or higher across four market dimensions, including ‘Total Market’, ‘Top 10 Drug Producers’, ‘Drug Categories’, and ‘Competitive Drug Groups’. The major challenge was achieving the demanded accuracy for the Ukrainian market, which is highly volatile due to the war against russia, the unstable economy, and unpredictable migrations of population inside the country and abroad. Nevertheless, our data scientists conducted in-depth research, ran a range of experiments with several prediction models, and delivered a ready-made prediction solution in less than a week.

– How does the Sales Forecasting Solution help business in the meantime?

“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”.

– Do you plan to apply the solution for other purposes?

“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

Aggregating data from disparate sources is a rather popular application of AI and Big Data algorithms practically. The Data Matching Solution is the latest project by Infopulse for Darnytsia. It helps match drug information between the company’s internal database and external reports from pharmacies that collaborate with Darnytsia.

– What are the practical benefits of such automation for business?

“This solution literally helped save lives – we process data from hundreds of pharmacy networks across the country. 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 additional use cases do you see for this solution within your business processes?

“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”.

Resistance to AI: How to Address It Inside the Organization?

Changes, even for the better, are often met with resistance. In the case of AI, employees often need to upskill and spend some time onboarding new solutions to feel the value of those changes. Overcoming employee resistance is exceptionally important to succeed in digital transformation.

– How are AI solutions met by employees? How do you raise their tech maturity?

“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 by Infopulse 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, Infopulse 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 that 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 Social Healthcare Support

Advanced technologies help Darnytsia not only run business smarter but also launch important social initiatives.

– You mentioned that your customers also win from advanced technologies. In what way?

“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 highlights 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 solution may also address PTSD, offering dietary and medication guidance and ultimately improving life and productivity”.

– To conclude, in your opinion, can modern Pharma manufacturers thrive without adopting 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 sharing their pioneering work in AI-powered advancements and invaluable insights in pharma modernization. Our team is excited to be a part of Darnytsia’s tech journey, and we look forward to continuing our impactful partnership to drive further advancements together.