Critical Global Healthcare Issues: Ones to Watch in 2025

Faced with myriad challenges, global healthcare must navigate critical and ongoing issues. As for the most pressing issues this year, here are our top picks to watch, including rising healthcare costs, chronic illnesses, and mental health crises, among others. Medication accessibility, supply chain constraints, digital healthcare, and cybersecurity are also key concerns.

Increasing Healthcare Costs

No surprise that, given the aging population, global healthcare faces the burden of managing high volumes of chronic diseases. While technological advancements, AI-driven solutions, and medical innovations improve efficiency, they also require significant investment, often leading to higher costs across the healthcare value chain—from solution providers to patients, practitioners, and governments. Economic barriers may hinder the provision of affordable and accessible care.

Competitive and market intelligence can help healthcare organizations identify cost-saving opportunities, optimize resource utilization, and develop strategies to manage expenditures efficiently.

Chronic Diseases

Chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and cancer remain major global healthcare concerns. Their increasing prevalence places a strain on healthcare management systems and resources.

Drug developers and healthcare providers must stay informed about the latest research, treatment methods, and emerging therapies through competitive intelligence. Access to a well-mapped competitive landscape allows companies to develop innovative solutions that improve patient outcomes while reducing strain on the global healthcare system.

Mental Health

The global mental health crisis has been exacerbated by the pandemic, wars, economic instability, and other factors. Demand for mental health services has surged, highlighting the need for effective interventions and support mechanisms.

Competitive intelligence helps healthcare providers identify gaps in mental health services, understand patient needs, and, for pharmaceutical and biotech companies, identify new mechanisms of action (MOAs) to develop targeted interventions.

Accessibility of Vaccines and Medication

The GLP-1 supply crunch provided valuable lessons in managing supply chain logistics for high-demand medications. Beyond GLP-1s, ensuring the availability and supply of medicines and vaccines remains a significant issue, particularly in middle and low-income countries.

The use of competitive intelligence, AI tools, and strategic collaborations can help organizations track medication availability, identify supply chain bottlenecks, and develop efficient distribution mechanisms.

Digital Health and Cybersecurity

The increased adoption of digital health technologies, such as telemedicine and AI-driven diagnostics, has exposed healthcare systems to cyber threats. Safeguarding patient data security and privacy is paramount.

Competitive intelligence enables organizations to stay up to date with the latest cybersecurity threats, best practices, and regulatory requirements. With a strong understanding of the competitive landscape, healthcare stakeholders can develop robust cybersecurity plans to protect patient data and build trust.

The Role of Competitive and Market Intelligence in Healthcare Strategy

Identifying Opportunities and Trends

Gathering and analyzing data on competitors, market trends, and innovations allows organizations to identify new growth opportunities, develop novel solutions, and establish strategic collaborations. These insights enable companies to optimize resources and strengthen their competitive positioning.

Boosting Decision-Making

Competitive intelligence provides healthcare organizations with actionable insights to make well-informed decisions. By analyzing market trends, competitor actions, and shifts in patient demand, organizations can develop strategies that align with business priorities, optimize resource allocation, and refine growth objectives.

Improving Patient Care and Treatment Options

Staying informed about the latest research, treatments, and best practices enables healthcare organizations to enhance the quality of care. Competitive intelligence helps identify new treatment methods, monitor intervention effectiveness, and support the development of personalized care options. For pharmaceutical and biotech firms, these insights are crucial in delivering cutting-edge, individualized therapies.

Facilitating Innovation

Competitive intelligence helps healthcare organizations stay at the forefront of innovation. By monitoring emerging technologies, research advancements, and market trends, companies can identify new opportunities for growth and innovation while avoiding unpromising investments. This ensures that resources are directed toward the most viable and impactful solutions.

Enhancing Collaboration

Competitive intelligence can identify potential investors, collaborators, and strategic partners. By understanding industry capabilities, key metrics, and market dynamics, pharma, biotech, and healthcare solution providers can forge alliances that strengthen their market positioning and drive innovation.

Notwithstanding these obstacles, the application of Competitive and Market Intelligence holds tremendous value and opportunities for pharmaceutical, biotech, and other innovative healthcare delivery and service providers to tackle these challenges by offering useful and meaningful insights to produce the most actionable, data-driven strategies.

Harness the Power of Competitive and Market Intelligence.

For over 35 years, Fletcher has been a trusted, leading provider of world-class competitive and market intelligence research, tools, and strategic decision support solutions to the most innovative Life Sciences organizations worldwide.

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Contact me, Tina Witte, SVP of Fletcher’s Life Science Practice Area, at cristina_witte@fletchercsi.com to learn more about our range of Primary Competitive Intelligence, Market Intelligence, Customized Research, and Strategic Decision Support tools and resources.