Life science companies can now create personalized virtual worlds with Indegene’s metaverse capabilities

Indegene is launching metaverse capabilities — including healthcare provider (HCP) interactions and patient education — for life science companies, the company announced Monday.

Life sciences companies will be able to create “immersive healthcare experiences,” like interactions with HCPs in a virtual medical congress or attending a virtual education lecture, as part of the new services.

Despite a significant amount of hype over the metaverse that may not have yet fully materialized, Indegene’s move marks a continued push among pharma and healthcare companies to embrace it.

“Life sciences organizations are looking to reimagine healthcare interactions and be ahead of the curve,” Gaurav Kapoor, EVP at Indegene, said in a statement. “We are excited to bring to our clients the ability to create immersive experiences to aid seamless and richer engagements with HCPs and patients.”

Kapoor added that Indegene will have the ability to design “highly personalized virtual worlds” that will help life science companies “be future ready.”

The metaverse is still considered a major opportunity in the pharma world, according to an Accenture study published last year that found 85% of biopharma executives expect it to have a positive impact on the industry.

However, the metaverse is still a growing, malleable space – and if life science companies take a pragmatic approach, they can glean opportunities in clinical trial recruitment, education and patient experience, another recent report out of Cognizant argued.

“[Metaverse’s] intrinsic nature opens the door for a new dimension of how knowledge can be shared and measured,” Gustavo Kesselring, VP of external affairs at IFAPP Academy, said in a statement. “In the near future, its gamification features can be used to transform the way we have taught and evaluated for more than a hundred years, and the early adopters will benefit the most.”

Indegene’s push to expand its metaverse capabilities comes months after it acquired healthcare comms agency CultHealth in a move to bolster its creative and medical offerings.

Shortly thereafter, AstraZeneca handed its omnichannel operations mandate over to Indegene, calling on the agency to boost it globally.

“What pharma is realizing is that in order to drive better omnichannel experiences for customers — whether it’s HCPs, patients or other stakeholders — these towers need to talk to one another,” Sanjay Parikh, executive director/EVP at Indegene, told MM+M at the time.

Indegene’s further expansion into metaverse capabilities, likewise, seeks to take advantage of the larger push to transform medical education.