The pharmaceutical industry has long relied on cutting-edge tools and technologies to help deliver safe, reliable drugs to market. With the recent pandemic, on the surface, although it may seem that the challenge faced by the pharmaceutical industry is just about the race against time to find a viable vaccine, it is the digital technologies and tools that helped them achieve this historical victory. This is where Artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry has been playing a critical role. Over the last five years, the use of Artificial Intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry has redefined how scientists develop new drugs, tackle the disease, and more. According to a report by verdict, 70% of the businesses surveyed thought that AI would be very important for their growth and survival. For pharmaceutical businesses that thrive on innovation, this is a crucial statistic to understand. Here is how AI and ML are transforming the pharmaceutical industry.  

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Artificial intelligence for faster drug discovery and design

The key benefit of employing Artificial Intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry is the reduced time it takes to test a drug and the time it takes for a drug to get approval and reach the market. This results in great cost savings that would indeed lower the drug costs for patients. With the help of AI, the initial screening of drug compounds to the predicted success rate based on biological factors and measuring RNA and DNA can be done quickly. This is how AI-powered precision medicine or next-generation sequencing helps in the faster discovery of drugs. Thus, the pharmaceutical industry is using AI to increase the success rate of new drugs while decreasing operational costs at the same time.

Artificial intelligence for processing biomedical and clinical data

This is one of the most crucial uses of Artificial Intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry. Pharma companies deal with large volumes of textual data from various sources like patient reports, drug reports, etc. For researchers, processing and interpreting these large volumes of textual data can be time-consuming and tiresome. This is where AI algorithms are intelligently employed. AI algorithms can read, group, and interpret these data and thus provides a more efficient way to examine the data from the various sources. Moreover, everything from handwritten notes in clinical studies and test results to environmental factors and imaging scans can be collected and interpreted by AI. Thus, AI can be a big time-saver for researchers in the pharmaceutical industry.

Artificial intelligence for identifying clinical trial candidates

Identifying candidates for clinical trials is a crucial part of testing the efficiency of new drugs. But according to a report by Science direct, a staggering 86% of clinical trials fail to recruit sufficient patients which in turn leads to slower research and delays patients’ access to life-saving drugs. AI can be employed in this case to find suitable patients to participate in the trials. Using advanced predictive analytics, AI can analyze genetic information to identify the appropriate patient population for a clinical trial. AI also helps to determine the optimal sample size for these trials. Thus, Artificial Intelligence is being employed in the pharmaceutical industry for identifying clinical trial candidates.  

Artificial intelligence to improve the drug manufacturing process

In the development and production of drugs, Artificial Intelligence provides numerous opportunities to improve processes. With the help of Artificial Intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry, pharma companies can shorten design time, reduce material waste, improve production reuse, perform predictive maintenance, and more. For example, a process that usually relies on human intervention to input or manages process data can be done using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) powered by a Machine Learning algorithm. Thus, Artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry to improve the drug manufacturing process not only makes production more efficient with faster output and less waste but also ensures tasks are performed very precisely and the product’s Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs) are met.

Given the growing importance of Artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry, only those pharma companies that readily embrace AI would navigate to victory in these trying times. For those ready to seize the opportunity and meet the challenge, we, at Intone, help you transform your pharmaceutical company to achieve new levels in life science. We are creating new and innovative strategies that result in infinite new possibilities to reinvent the patient experience and redefine the future of the pharmaceutical and life sciences. We offer a full range of services that set the gold standard in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry by creating innovative, intelligent, intuitive, and integrated solutions including R&D, patient services and CRM, cloud migration, commercial services, supply chain, financial transformation, GRC, and technology design, build and integration.

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