Can Pharma and AI co-exist?

Are you working in pharma, and are interested in understanding how AI could be used in your team? Are you concerned about Code compliance and privacy with ChatGPT and OpenAI? Register now for our free webinar on the 13th September 2024, 1pm BST.

____________________________

With the rise of AI, the conversation is now beginning to shift towards what the future holds for the pharmaceutical and medical communications industries. The idea of AI taking over jobs and becoming more efficient can be a daunting prospect. However, is it possible for AI and the pharma world to work together harmoniously, ensuring that everyone still has a role to play?

The integration of AI in pharma presents challenges and opportunities. Whilst it's understandable that concerns about job displacement and efficiency arise, a collaborative approach between AI and human professionals can lead to a more effective and improved healthcare landscape.

Across the R&D, commercial and medical pipelines, we located the below opportunities where AI can safely be integrated to break new ground in science. As compliance is paramount, and the ABPI Code is yet to cover appropriate guidance on the matter, privacy considerations and compliant ways of working should also be kept in mind.

Improve Clinical Trials

Data Analysis: AI can analyse clinical trial data in real-time, identifying trends and insights that may not be immediately apparent to the human eye.

Monitoring and Compliance:   AI-powered tools can monitor patients’ adherence to trial protocols and alert researchers to any deviations, improving the reliability of the results.

Streamlining Med Comms

Automated Reporting: AI can assist in report writing by collating and summarising data/information, searching for specific points, and helping find studies from large databases. It can also help with summarising content from conferences, webinars, RWE data or existing literature.  

Content Creation: AI can assist in the writing and editing of medical content. AI can, for instance, help create ultra-targeted materials that focuses on customer expectations, helping you build a more personalized relationship with medical professionals, buyers and other stakeholders. This technology can also help accelerate launch times, provide content checks and improve the success rate for NICE and other regulatory submissions.

Adverse Event Monitoring:  Using AI to help monitor adverse events (AE) on multiple platforms. Here at medDigital, we have now implemented AI to our Digital Advisory Board (DAB) platform, medCrowd. This now ensures that any AE or potential AE is picked up and showcased to subscription admins. Of course, we still have human checks in place from our team of scientists – but we’re setting up the foundations of an AI-enhanced future.

Preserving Current Roles

Complementary roles:  AI should complement human expertise. At medDigital, a dedicated team of experts specialises in Scientific Review and Signatory Approvals. The team ensures that all work is thoroughly reviewed before it goes through the approval stage. AI now helps us spot amends to materials even faster, while our AQP team oversees the final output and shares reviews for final sign off. This remains an essential component to ensure outputs are compliant and scientifically sound.

Irreplaceable human component: Ethical considerations and personal touch to patient care are vital. AI can be generic, and it does not replicate human emotions, therefore there are some nuances it simply won’t understand. Because of the innate human ability to empathise and employ appropriate bedside manners, key elements of patient care, outreach and education will be irreplaceable in this lifetime. So, although AI may support with creating bespoke content such as patient leaflets, educational videos or outreach materials, it will ultimately be real people finalising and approving all copy and ensuring it is appropriate and meaningful for the intended audience.

Job Opportunities: New jobs are already arising with the incorporation of AI in pharma, which can offer career growth and development such as, AI prompt engineer, data scientist, or data analytics researchers.

So, if you’re asking yourself “Will AI take my job?” The answer, simply put, is No. Using AI in pharma and medical communications can achieve groundbreaking advancements, but humans undoubtedly continue to play a vital role in the industry. Here at medDigital we have introduced our Scientific AI support service to help our team expedite their work, add depth to research and help us deliver the high-quality content you already know us for.

The pivotal learning point will be understanding how the collaboration can help enhance the final outcomes of the work, and how to ensure compliance when working with AI. So, to learn more about AI and its potential within the pharmaceutical industry, register now for our free webinar on the 13th September 2024, 1pm BST.