The total healthcare cloud computing market size is forecast to be almost $35bn in 2022, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21.7% between 2018 and 2022, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The company’s latest report ‘Cloud Computing in Healthcare – Thematic Research’ found that in recent years, investing in cloud computing technology has become an increased priority for healthcare organizations and networks. However, there is still inertia to overcome due to data security and privacy concerns, infrastructure availability, regulatory compliance worries, and a lack of the staff skills required to manage and maintain the technology.

As a result, the pharmaceutical cloud computing market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20.9% between 2018 and 2022, from $4.7bn in 2017 to $12.1bn in 2022.

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Alexandra Annis, MS, Managing Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, says: “For healthcare, a prominent shift is expected in cloud systems from simple data storage to using the technology to lower costs and increase efficiencies within the system. Although pharma makes up a small proportion of the cloud computing space, which brought in over $233bn in 2017, it is foreseen to lead to a fully integrated platform in pharma that can compute tasks such as personalized patient care and clinical trial optimization.

“The pharmaceutical industry will be able to drive to the next level of innovation and analytics, for example by using the cloud’s functionality to match data effectively with patients. This personalized approach will provide physicians with the tools to make the best treatment decisions for patients.

“The power of the cloud also offers the potential to speed up the drug development process, without compromising efficacy or safety. This will draw from its ability to collect data from patients around the world in real-time.”