The pharma analytics market reached $60B in revenues in 2021 and is expected to grow at a 20% annual rate in the coming years. The data and business intelligence provided by pharma analytics companies around drug sales is of outmost importance for multiple stakeholders in the pharma industry (e.g., manufacturers, distributors, and regulators), who rely on this data for their decision-making. However, this data is becoming increasingly biased and myopic: it only accounts for drug sales from legal pharmacies, overlooking sales from illegal pharmacies. This limitation is becoming more and more problematic since sales from illegal pharmacies (mainly operating online) are growing at a substantive pace. The goal of this PoC is to address this limitation through the development of a web service that will provide data and business analytics on drug sales by Illegal Online Pharmacies (IOPs). This web service will allow potential users to visualize market trends, download data, and develop customized reports on IOPs The goal of this PoC is to develop a web service API that will provide data and business analytics on drug sales by Illegal Online Pharmacies (IOPs) through a web portal. This web service will allow potential users to visualize market trends, download data, and develop customized reports, and will be provided following a pay-per-use commercial structure. While multiple stakeholders in the pharma industry are potentially interested in this data (e.g., manufacturers, distributors, pharma analytics companies, policy-makers, and law enforcement authorities), this data is currently unavailable due to the obscure nature of IOPs’ activities. The web service proposed in this PoC will generate such data through the algorithms designed in the ILLEGALPHARMA ERC-funded project. Accordingly, this PoC outlines the technological and commercial processes that will be implemented to transform the research generated in ILLEGALPHARMA into a business innovation with market potential.

The overall goal of DIGYMATEX is to provide evidence-based tools that will assist in understanding and measuring children’s digital maturity. These tools are intended to be used e.g. by families, schools, and policy stakeholders. The first tool is the development of an innovative and market-ready instrument - the Digital Youth Maturity Index (DYMI) – as a cloud-based open-access tool in order to establish and implement a comprehensive understanding and taxonomy of children’s digital maturity leading to the prediction and explanation of benefits and risks regarding children’s ICT-related behaviour. The Digital Youth Maturity Index will act as a measurement tool for classification and segmentation of user groups as well as a behavioural prediction tool based on machine-learning techniques. The second tool is the development and application of the DiGYou-program - a technology-related solution and recommendation program, which is based on as well as supports the application of the DYMI. The two innovative tools will directly target the main impact goals associated with the call. With the Digital Youth Maturity Index (DMYI), the project will be able to develop and implement a comprehensive taxonomy, which will inform relevant stakeholders and practitioners on the long-term effects of ICT on child behaviour. Furthermore, with the DMYI in combination with the DigYou3-program, we will develop concrete solutions in order to contribute to a safer and more beneficial use of digital technologies by children and we will be able to formulate recommendations in support of national and European policies in the field. DYGIMATEX - builds on an inter-disciplinary, multi-method approach by integrating expertise, methods and knowledge from different research areas like business management, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, media and information systems, as well as industry partners (i.e., from IOT, food, telecommunication) and policy stakeholders (i.e., education, EU policy).

This project aims to develop a competitive dynamics theory of the informal economy, which is currently lacking in academic research. Specifically, this project will adopt an institutional theory perspective to better understand three fundamental outcomes in the informal economy: market entry (illegal businesses’ decision to be active in a specific niche), price competition (price differentials between legal and illegal products), and product quality (quality of products sold in illegal businesses). The main conceptual proposition suggested in this project is that selling products through illegal means may still be perceived as a legitimate activity. Building on this statement, it will be proposed that the degree in which actors perceive the sale of an illegal product as a more or less legitimate activity will influence (1) entrepreneurs’ decision to illegally enter such market, (2) consumers’ willingness to pay for such illegal product (i.e., price differential versus the legal version of the product) and (3) manufacturers’ motivation to keep quality standards for that illegal product. The empirical setting for this study will be the illegal sale of pharmaceutical drugs. The sale of illegal pharmaceuticals accounts for more than 10% of the medicines market and over €30 billion in annual earnings (World Health Organization, 2003). It represents one of the biggest challenges for societies in that, attending to the WHO’s Department of Essential Medicines and Health Products, anywhere from 100,000 to a million people die every year due to falsified drugs. Accordingly, this study aims to provide two main contributions: (1) an academic contribution by developing a radically new theory of the competitive dynamics in the informal economy, and (2) a practical contribution by providing a better understanding of the determinants of the informal economy that could help policy makers and regulators in their goal of fighting the trading of illegal medicines.