Bridging the digital divide in the pharmaceutical industry: A future research agenda

Digital transformation is reshaping the pharmaceutical industry, but adoption remains fragmented due to regulatory constraints, organizational inertia, and unequal digital capabilities. This study investigates how the digital divide influences the implementation of new technologies across the pharmaceutical value chain. We combined a systematic literature review of 70 peer-reviewed studies with topic modeling (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) to provide an integrated overview of challenges, opportunities, and future research directions. Our analysis identified 16 thematic clusters consolidated into five strategic domains: Advancing Drug Discovery, Reinventing Organizational Strategies, Optimizing Manufacturing, Strengthening Supply Chains, and Developing Patient-Centric Models. The results show that digital transformation is not only a technical matter but also a systemic process shaped by regulation, governance, and socio-economic conditions. While artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital twins, and other technologies hold potential to accelerate innovation and improve patient outcomes, their benefits are distributed unevenly. Large multinational firms, advanced laboratories, and well-resourced health systems are better positioned to adopt these tools, while small and medium enterprises, emerging economies, and marginalized patient groups often face barriers in infrastructure, expertise, and compliance. From these findings, we developed a structured research agenda to bridge the pharmaceutical digital divide. Priorities include clarifying regulatory and institutional frameworks for digital technologies, identifying the organizational capabilities and governance models required for systemic adoption, and addressing equity implications to ensure inclusive access across geographies, firms, and patient populations. This study contributes methodologically by integrating systematic review and topic modeling, conceptually by framing digital transformation through a value-chain and digital divide perspective, and practically by offering a roadmap for managers, policymakers, and scholars.