The demand for more agile, efficient operations is rapidly increasing. The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on the pharma industry to implement innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), on a more expedited and broad-based scale than ever before. Subsequently, the industry is shifting its perception of automation-enabling solutions with embedded intelligence from the proof-of-concept to proof-of-value stage. This provides a clearer indication of the digital advancements that the life sciences industry must take to address the changing industry landscape and demands.

Life sciences will transform negative perceptions about AI/ML-powered decision-making. The world needs COVID-19 vaccines and treatments they trust, and soon. The life sciences industry is employing the efficiencies of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to reduce the time between drug discovery and market availability from years to months. These technologies are tools for both reducing tedious time-consuming data collection and enabling comparison of much larger and diverse data sets. Without these technologies, it used to take 40-plus scientists with doctorate degrees 25 years or more to discover a single marketable drug. Technological advances have sped up the modeling of 1,000 drugs to 40 minutes and for example allowing the process of Orphan drug discovery and production to be financially viable.

But many industry professionals still harbor negative perceptions of these new technologies and have been slow to adopt them into other areas – comparing them to “self-driving” cars. On the contrary, life science professionals are assisted rather than replaced by AI/ML technologies. The cumbersome work of weeding through the data is circumvented to enable humans to do the hardest and most important task – making informed decisions based on reliable, relevant and timely data.

The benefits of AI and ML are difficult to ignore and when designed correctly. New automation-enabling capabilities can transform how organizations collect and understand data. These technological advances will shift the way pharmaceutical professionals work, enabling them to move away from routine data entry toward more meaningful analysis and more value-adding work.

Virtual/remote clinical trials with AI-enabled safety monitoring will increase clinical trial participation. Virtual and remote clinical trials are helping to keep many medical advancements up and running during the global pandemic. Remote health care visits are on the rise amidst COVID. Remote visits accounted for more than 40 percent of primary care visits for patients with traditional Medicare, increasing by 400 percent (from a tiny 0.1 percent sliver before the public health emergency at the height of the COVID-19 shutdown).

COVID-19 has accelerated the need for a faster, more accessible clinical trial process. With the introduction of virtual or remote clinical trials, we’ll begin to see the concept of the continuous clinical trial evolve. This will include enhanced patient surveillance, or pharmacovigilance monitoring to ensure drug safety – even after the drug is brought to market.

Pharmaceutical companies will become more data science-oriented with advanced technologies to accomplish this, including automation and artificial intelligence (AI). This will help them continuously and proactively monitor patient safety data. By incorporating these automated technologies into the virtual clinical trial process, organizations can identify adverse event indicators swiftly and efficiently, as early as possible, to ensure the utmost patient safety. 

In a COVID world in which there is a push to make telemedicine more widely available, automation and AI technologies will serve as a key indicator and communicator throughout the clinical trial process. As further evidence of the growth here, a recent poll of older adults by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation found that more than 7 in 10 are interested in using telehealth for follow-ups with their doctor, and nearly 2 out of 3 feel comfortable with video conferences. In addition, the government’s flagship health care program, Medicare, has temporarily waived restrictions predating the smartphone era. Medicare covers more than 60 million people, including those age 65 and older, and younger disabled people.

The benefits of virtual and remote trials go beyond patient safety monitoring. These more digitalized trials also enable bi-directional data sharing, reducing friction between collecting important data points and automating the assessment of a patient’s condition with these more informed and robust sets of insights.

The future of medicine relies upon further digital transformation. In 2021 and beyond, purpose-built automation-based solutions will become critical for improving and expediting vaccine and treatment development, as well as safety and efficacy requirements for monitoring those treatments via pharmacovigilance practices. The industry’s ability to combat the current pandemic with life-saving vaccines and treatments, and help prepare for any future global health events, relies on its ability to continue to innovate (informed by new data and insights), in pursuit of true digital transformation.