Balancing innovation and security: the cyber challenge facing life sciences

High risk, high impact consequences

Life sciences organisations face what might be one of the most complex threat landscapes of any industry. Unlike purely digital businesses or traditional manufacturers, they rely on both complex physical supply chains and sophisticated digital ones. Their IT and OT surfaces are vast and with that tech surface comes risk in the form of cyber security threats.

The confidentiality concerns are critical as well. Life sciences companies hold some of the world's most valuable intellectual property, drug discovery data, clinical trial results, patient information, making them prime targets for data theft and ransomware attacks.

For life sciences, cyber security is not just about keeping secrets and data safe. Availability is equally critical, particularly as the industry shifts towards biologics and targeted medicines with much shorter shelf lives than traditional pharmaceuticals. When production stops, reinstating production fast is critical as neither a patient's treatment, nor the shelf life of their medications, can withstand long delays.

Then there is integrity to consider, ensuring that the data driving billion-dollar decisions and life-saving treatments have not been compromised. As AI models become increasingly central to drug development and innovation, threats like model poisoning and inversion attacks represent entirely new vectors that many organisations are still learning to defend against.

When combined with the cyber risk facing other manufacturing-reliant industries and the complex web of regulations these organisations are subject to, it is no surprise that many life sciences organisations must view cyber security as a critical business function.

The regulatory labyrinth

If the technical challenges were not enough, life sciences organisations are navigating an increasingly complex regulatory environment. The NIS2 directive, for example, which designates big pharma as critical infrastructure, has proven particularly challenging for global companies. Unlike regulations such as global data privacy regulations (GDPR), NIS2 is a directive rather than law, meaning individual countries are transposing it in different ways and some have not transposed it at all yet. The UK's Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, expected to begin rollout in 2026, adds another layer to an already complicated compliance picture.

Beyond NIS2, life sciences organisations are wrestling with questions about what constitutes a mandatory reportable breach, managing dozens of different certification schemes and determining how new regulations apply to evolving technologies like AI-powered diagnostics. The challenge is not just compliance; it is doing so whilst maintaining the pace of innovation the sector demands and the burden of holding both priorities in equal stead is a heavy one.

The healthcare connection: a vulnerable link in the cyber chain

Life sciences' reliance on complex supply chains introduces another vulnerability: the varying levels of cyber maturity across related sectors. This is particularly evident in healthcare, where the discrepancy between big pharma's security posture and that of hospitals and smaller healthcare providers creates significant risk.

In healthcare settings, cyber security often takes a backseat to patient care, understandably so but sometimes to the sector's detriment.

Security tasks are frequently performed by non-security professionals within resource-strapped teams, and there is not always a strong culture of security awareness. Patients' records can often be accessed by staff with no connection to their care, highlighting the gap between technical controls and security-minded behaviour. In a fitting example of this expertise gap, one UK hospital's disaster recovery test went catastrophically wrong when planners forgot to ensure normal operations could actually continue during the exercise, bringing down key operational systems in the process.

The funding constraints facing healthcare organisations compound these challenges. With tight budgets, money spent on information security is not being spent on patient care or medical innovation, a difficult trade-off that leaves vulnerabilities unaddressed.

Recognising this gap, many life sciences organisations have established security standards that healthcare organisations must meet to collaborate and partner with them. It is an acknowledgement that, in a sector as interconnected as life sciences, security is only as strong as the weakest link in the supply chain. The adoption of standards like ISO 27001 has become table stakes for data sharing partnerships, whilst investment in security, segmentation and threat intelligence is increasingly seen not as overhead but as essential infrastructure for a sector where innovation is everything.

AI: accelerating innovation and expanding the attack surface

Perhaps nowhere is the tension between innovation and security more apparent than in the sector's embrace of AI Life sciences organisations are more welcoming of AI than many other industries, and with good reason. As early as 2024, an estimated 95% of pharmaceutical companies were investing in AI, with spending projected to grow by 600% by 2030. It is not just the investment that is staggering, the potential impact is too, such as 80% timeline reductions in clinical trials. In fact, life sciences has been leveraging AI for years, even before consumers knew such technology existed.

Now, the technology is being deployed across the entire value chain: drug discovery, patient eligibility screening, diagnostic tools and even coaching pharmaceutical representatives. AI enables the biology-dependent pre-work that determines whether experimental treatments might work for specific patients, work that would be impossibly time-consuming without advanced computational assistance.

Yet this rapid adoption creates new vulnerabilities. Each AI system introduces an additional attack surface and threats like model poisoning or inversion attacks could theoretically compromise drug development pipelines or diagnostic tools. While, regulations offer some guardrails, the rate of adoption often outpaces the rate at which security protocols are being enhanced to address the increasing associated risks, particularly in non-patient facing applications.

Healthcare organisations, by contrast, show more hesitation around AI implementation, particularly given GDPR and data privacy concerns. Although organisations remain cautious, this does not dispel its growth, with 42% of life sciences executives reporting that AI is their top priority for digital transformation in 2026. Still, when AI is being tested in clinical settings, it is primarily to alleviate administrative pressures rather than for direct medical decision-making, a reflection of ongoing questions about the ethics of AI-driven care decisions.

Cyber maturity as a competitive advantage

The most mature life sciences organisations are reframing cyber security from a compliance burden or innovation blocker into a competitive advantage. This starts internally with implementing security by design principles, including close collaboration with scientists and business units. In an industry that more often than not takes a zero-trust approach, security teams must aim to maintain cyber postures without creating undue friction for innovators.

This maturity brings a more sophisticated risk framework and strategic viewpoint. Rather than trying to keep all threats out, an impossible task, especially in an industry advancing key areas so quickly – the focus has shifted to keeping the business running and safe despite ongoing threats. Resilience and continuity in the face of active threats and actual cyber incidents, understanding what a minimum viable business looks like were the worst to happen are key for life sciences

Moving forward: patients first, but security too

The life sciences sector faces a unique challenge: it must innovate at breakneck speed whilst managing extraordinary cyber risks. The good news is that leading organisations have recognised cyber security as integral to their mission rather than opposed to it.

Good governance, careful sampling practices and thoughtful regulation provide the guardrails needed to pursue innovation without recklessness. Life sciences organisations are no stranger to emerging technology and rapid innovation. What is changing is the maturity with which organisations approach the security implications of that technology.

For life sciences companies, cyber security is not just about protecting data or maintaining compliance. It is about ensuring that the innovations saving lives today can continue to do so tomorrow.

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