Data, interoperability and governance: the new frontier of life sciences
The field encompassing the various disciplines that study living organisms and the environment is undergoing a profound mutation, which goes beyond the technological dimension and affects organisational models and decision-making processes. The increasing availability of information (clinical, genomic, administrative and real-world data) opens up significant opportunities for prevention and personalisation of care. According to the OECD, the ability to make effective use of data is destined to become one of the main factors for the sustainability of healthcare systems in the coming years.
Recent analyses by the specialised company Iqvia also show how the advanced use of data is accelerating drug development, improving the efficiency of medical and healthcare research, and fostering outcome-based healthcare models. The European Health Data Space regulation, approved in January 2025 by the Council of the European Union, aims, not surprisingly, at establishing a common digital space for the secure sharing of health data, strengthening collaboration between countries and public and private actors: on paper, this is a substantial step forward, which will lead to the creation of ecosystems of rules, standards, common practices and infrastructures aimed at ensuring greater accessibility to information that can generate high public value.
At the same time, however, the obvious fragmentation of information systems and the equally obvious difficulty of integrating heterogeneous sources must be overcome (especially in Italy), tackling the limitation of applications incapable of dialoguing with each other in a systemic manner.
The need for a paradigm shift
The digital transformation of the Life Science world therefore represents one of the most complex and strategic challenges for the health and pharmaceutical industry and clinical research, also in view of the fact that the exponential increase in data and the spread of personalised medicine make a paradigm shift necessary: abandoning a model based on vertical and isolated solutions in favour of platforms capable of integrating different information, processes and players in a single ecosystem. The digitisation path, in other words, cannot be limited to the automation of individual procedures, but requires infrastructures capable of supporting the entire life cycle of data, providing a unified and reliable view of it. Investing in architectures that foster interoperability, security and intelligent use of data also means strengthening industrial competitiveness, improving the quality of healthcare services and supporting more resilient and sustainable growth.
Almaviva's strategy for Life Sciences
Bringing innovation to Life Science has a direct impact on the country system and it is in this direction that Almaviva's vision fits, which identifies technology as a fundamental enabler to face the demographic, economic and social challenges of the coming years and which reflects the Group's consolidated experience in the public sector and in the field of large IT infrastructures. Almaviva's strategic role, in a context in which digitalisation is increasingly a competitive factor, stems from skills ranging from process knowledge to security and compliance aspects, and finds concrete application in Helios Almaviva by GIOTTO, a platform designed to become a lever for the development and modernisation of the entire ecosystem.
A single platform to govern the digital transformation
Helios was in fact created with the intention of supporting the evolution of the Life Science world through a single, scalable platform capable of governing the complexity of the sector and focusing on interoperability, data management and technologies, artificial intelligence naturally included. Conceived as a modular architecture to integrate quickly with existing systems and be easily adaptable to the needs of the different players involved (pharmaceutical companies, research centres, healthcare facilities and institutions), Helios presents itself with a well-defined distinctive value: the ability to overcome information silos and to foster the sharing and exploitation of data in a secure and regulatory-compliant manner on the one hand, and to transform fragmented information into strategic assets on the other.
In a regulated sector such as life sciences, where data quality and traceability are critical success factors, the real plus of this platform is to be found in the special attention paid to the governance of the data itself. In fact, Almaviva's approach aims at structuring evolved models capable of facilitating the adoption of interoperability standards also in a European perspective, where the drive towards shared digital spaces requires reliable systems ready to dialogue on a supranational scale.
Health data is becoming increasingly valuable also in economic terms: it is therefore essential to have tools that guarantee its correctness, integrity and responsible use. And the development of Helios goes precisely in the direction of responding to this specific need, thanks to advanced analytics and artificial intelligence functions geared to concrete and measurable use cases. From clinical research to the management of care pathways, to the monitoring of outcomes and the optimisation of processes, data and AI become the tools for extracting information value to support decision-making, with a view to responsible and data-driven innovation, for which model reliability and process transparency remain essential requirements in order to make a real impact on the efficiency of healthcare services.
A bridge between healthcare, research and industry
Helios also acts as a connection point between traditionally separate worlds such as public health, scientific research and the life science industry. By facilitating the sharing and analysis of data, the platform helps to reduce the distances between these spheres, fostering collaborative models and, in particular, the possibility of exploiting 'real-world' data and integrating them with information from clinical research, an advantage that, according to Almaviva, opens up new perspectives for the development of more effective therapies and more sustainable management of healthcare systems.
In a context in which the ability to govern data becomes a decisive factor for innovation, platforms such as Helios therefore represent a fundamental building block for accompanying the evolution of the sector, creating collaborative and interoperable ecosystems and supporting the responsible and advanced use of information. This is a direction that involves companies, institutions and the healthcare apparatus as a whole, and which confirms how digital transformation is increasingly becoming a central factor for the competitiveness and modernisation of the country's system.
