The IT Impact

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Improving the connections between scientists and patients in need of novel therapies gives the IT experts of EMD Serono a rare opportunity to directly affect the lives of others

“If you’re in IT at a global science and technology company, you rarely have the opportunity to contribute to improving the life of the patient. My team and I are extremely privileged and in a very unique situation.” For Stella Ivanov, Head of IT for Global Patient Services (Americas and APAC) and her team at EMD Serono, that beneficial, often unseen connection changes lives across the continuum of care.

EMD Serono, the U.S. healthcare business arm of Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany, integrates cutting-edge science and innovative technology to develop products and devices that meet the needs of patients living with difficult-to-treat diseases, such as infertility, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. Their therapeutic areas cover neurology, immunology, fertility, endocrinology, and oncology.

Headquartered in Boston, the biopharma leader has made a significant impact on the world with pioneering achievements such as, including the first company to bring a recombinant human product for treating infertility to market. (A recombinant human product refers to DNA, proteins, cells, or organisms made by combining genetic material from two different sources.) The innovation led to the birth of the first IVF baby in the United States – and 5 million globally since.

Stella Ivanov

As IT head for patient services, Stella Ivanov and her team enable platform capabilities for end users who have direct interactions with patients, caregivers, or healthcare professionals. We asked her what connection means in the context of delivering patient services in the digital age.

"Each day, my team and I are driven and motivated by the opportunity to enable tools and capabilities that enhance the lives of patients. It's this commitment to improving patient care and fostering better health outcomes that inspires us to make a meaningful difference,” she answered. “Sometimes we can push approval statuses faster to make sure that patients can get on therapy faster or receive their medication faster.”

In her 20-plus-year career with the company, Ms. Ivanov has worked in a variety of roles in local and global IT teams, ranging from managing a single application to a plethora of them, and with users spanning the Americas and nine APAC countries and plans to expand further. In addition to her patient services responsibilities, she is responsible for ensuring regulatory compliance of Patient Services applications in those countries and regions. Her position recently expanded to include technology-related initiatives for U.S. neurology and immunology marketing and operations.

“My team is extremely talented and I'm lucky to have every single member by my side,” she enthused. “We work closely together on many initiatives across multiple regions, countries, and therapeutic areas.”

The team under the leadership of Ms. Ivanov is currently exploring the potential of generative AI, working closely with Salesforce to map out how the capabilities of their Einstein One technology can contribute to EMD Serono’s future goals. One such contribution is the use of summarization capabilities to better prepare an agent before having a direct conversation with a patient. The advance prep also frees up more time for these intricate conversations.

“We have a variety of data across multiple different communication channels and multiple different platforms and we utilize it to ensure that we can provide better service. What we're trying to achieve with Salesforce Einstein One platform is more effective and efficient ways to use AI and next gen AI capabilities in support of patient services,” she explains, noting that while the plan is to adopt the technology, preparation is still underway.

“We’re looking to better segment our data based on information that we have in our database,” she added, noting that they are looking to utilize predictive analytics capabilities to boost the power of the data and prioritize patient needs and services. “We believe this will help unlock brand insights that exist inside of our database which can provide critical feedback on developing marketing plans, brand launch strategy, market research, and patient experience initiatives.”

They are also investigating the potential of using "OCR and ICR technology to quickly identify whether the correct document types are uploaded, which will ensure a faster turnaround in the application approval process,” she explained. “This will hopefully result in a better overall patient experience,” she added. Furthermore, this technology has the potential to be utilized in other areas, such as assisting during the onboarding process by deciphering handwritten fax forms. It can provide a confidence score, allowing live agents to review any information flagged as low confidence, thereby enhancing accuracy and efficiency in handling data.

“We're always looking for new ways we can improve. There's never a limit to how much better you can get, and we're always looking for greater and better things to drive innovation and to continue innovating in this space.”

Global leadership is poised to further grow EMD Serono’s domestic footprint. “U.S. healthcare results contribute to our parent company’s overall global healthcare success,” Ms. Ivanov said. “With multiple investigation therapies in early and late stages of development, we have a proven partnership strategy to advance innovation. There is a window of opportunity to enhance our company's presence and enable even stronger global growth.”

As company president Chris Round stated recently, “The U.S. market is critical to our continued success as a global specialty innovator. Over the past few years, we successfully transformed our R&D approach to become more efficient. And we reshaped the pipeline fundamentally, changing how we work to bring new medicines to more patients faster. In addition, our business development efforts have been impressive over the last year. Since 2023, we have licensed four clinical programs, which is more than in the previous five years combined.

We have multiple investigational therapies in early to late-stage development on the horizon and an active, proven partnering strategy to advance innovation

“You can't be in healthcare unless you can provide value to patients. Our patients, our therapies, our portfolio in oncology, neurology, and fertility is what really allows us to succeed and hopefully continue to expand,” Ms. Ivanov concluded. “And my team will be there to support every drug, every therapeutic area, and every single patient that our company serves for as long as we're here."