How AI Is Changing The Pharmaceutical Industry

Most, if not all, industries nowadays rely heavily on artificial intelligence (AI). People need things done instantly in this fast-paced world. The use of AI makes that happen, processes are fulfilled in an instant and with accuracy.

Despite the arguments that AI will replace jobs, many factories still opt for the integration of AI. It doesn’t exist to replace human hands entirely but to assist them and even make their jobs easier. 

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the sectors that can benefit from AI systems. Pharmacists work day in and day out to develop drugs for various common illnesses and rare diseases. It used to take decades to make a new medicine, but with the AI system in place, it speeds up the process. Here are a few changes that AI has brought to improve the pharmaceutical industry:

Development Of New Drugs

If AI can make your phone respond to you with a few words, then it could also help you create or improve anything. Producing new drugs is much efficient now with the assistance of an AI system. 

According to a study published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only 13.8% of new drugs pass clinical trials. Pharmaceutical companies may even pay up to $2 billion to complete clinical trial processes and get approval from the FDA. 

To make the most out of their budget, these companies use AI to raise success rates and reduce operational costs.

How it works

You can develop learning models that speed up the creation of new medicines to release to the market. The AI helps find new compounds in experimented cells that may be useful in further studies and analyses. If companies did this the traditional way, it would take years to accomplish. Computers naturally uncover new and old data faster compared to humans. Additionally, using AI technologies reduces the cost of operations while making drugs available for the public sooner.

Support The Supply Chain

One risk the Pharma industry has to deal with is the surge of counterfeit drugs. Not only do fake drugs ruin the reputation of these industries, but they may also worsen the symptoms of sick patients taking them. An AI system enhances the security of deployed medicine and decreases the risk of these counterfeit drugs being illegally distributed. Unlike manual files, AI can store many drugs’ serial numbers and even record those shipped abroad. 

AI also helps local pharmacies with their inventory. It’ll be much easier for pharmacists to track their supplies and input their sales into the system. The AI system regularly updates the manufacturers to know which pharmacies need a restock of certain drugs without waiting for manual reports.

Any business needs an effective system to keep track of its logistics and inventory. The same could be said for a pharmaceutical company. That’s the main reason businesses are transitioning to AI technology due to its importance in operations.

Manage Drug Shortages And Recalls

Another huge issue pharmaceutical companies have to face is the lack of specific medical products in areas that need them. Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic may cause these issues to arise. With so many people from different places looking for the same treatments, keeping up with their demands is a challenge.

AI technology addresses shortages by providing data on what can be used as alternative treatments. It can examine the usage of certain drugs and predict what can be paired with them to make effective treatments. AI can also analyze inventory trends and prevent a shortage from happening in the future.

Managing recalls

In the unfortunate event that a batch of drugs gets contaminated, this needs to be recalled quickly. Doing this avoids the risk of patients consuming the compromised drug and suffering from complications.

A pharmaceutical company can easily pinpoint the origin of the contamination through AI. With this knowledge, the teams can work more efficiently to eliminate the contaminated medicine and replace these with new and untainted ones faster.

Disease Prevention

Did you know that almost 95% of rare diseases still don’t have Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) approved treatments? Most pharmaceutical companies don’t usually focus on creating drugs for these diseases because of the low returns on their investments. But with AI, pharmacists are gaining a renewed interest in developing treatments for these rare diseases.

Instead of manually screening potential cures and their possible effects, AI technology can do this while also predicting which ones may not work. This process saves companies billions of dollars in the long run.

AI for patients

AI for pharmaceutical companies can also be used by patients as long as their phone has access to applications. Medical apps can monitor and detect changes in the patient’s condition, like those with Parkinson’s disease. AI may even change the daily lives of diabetes patients for the better because of AI’s updated monitoring. Doctors can monitor their patients despite the distance, and the app can also notify them of any needed changes in their patient’s treatments.

In Conclusion

AI has become an integral part of human lives that most people barely notice. Ever since its conception, AI technology aimed to make people’s daily lives easier and more manageable. Even businesses like the pharmaceutical industries transitioned to using AI systems to make their processes efficient. By adapting to advanced technology, medical advancement and development will surely improve. Accordingly, everybody will benefit from this progress.

The changes that AI has given the industry are significant not just only for the business but for the people who are in need of quality and effective medication. This article will make people realize that AI is not replacing human jobs but rather helping to make tasks efficient and of quality.