AI is helping to ease some of pharma’s pandemic pressures

Although pharma has leveraged AI in many facets of early drug discovery and development for years, its wider adoption across the pharma value chain is picking up steam and the technology is becoming a growing “must have” in the industry, according to Deloitte.

In this overview report of the AI market in pharma, read about how AI-related deals are not just growing in number but also growing in size, while its use-cases are increasingly solving COVID-related challenges.

Turning cancer research into reality

Lung cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers in the U.S. for both men and women, and developing new treatments in this space is a complicated endeavor. But Dr. Sylvee Laquerre, vice president, disease area leader of solid tumor targeted therapies ​​at the Janssen division of J&J, has a plan to blaze a new trail in lung cancer therapies. 

In this installment of our ongoing Woman of the Week podcast series, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Taren Grom, catches up with Laquerre to discuss the complexities of the lung cancer space and what it takes to bring an innovative treatment to market.

In case you missed yesterday's stories

Yesterday we learned about Craig Lipset and his quest to boost the patient's role in clinical trials, and featured executive insights on how patient engagement will lead to growth opportunities. 

I recently binged the Matrix trilogy so that I could watch — and be disappointed by — the newest installment: “The Matrix Resurrections.” In the original movie, humans are enslaved by AI machines who trap their minds in a simulated reality while harnessing their bodies for energy. That premise — that humans and AI would have a catastrophic fallout that ruins the world — was easy enough to accept in 1999. Today, however, attitudes toward AI have become a little less suspicious as the technology weaves itself deeper into our daily lives.

The mindset towards AI in pharma is also changing. In a survey of life science executives by Deloitte, nearly all of the respondents reported that their companies had made AI investments of at least $1 million — and 40% of those surveyed fell into the $20-50 million investment range.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be running a series of articles that help uncover what the AI transformation means for pharma, while looking at its potential — and pitfalls — in the drugmaking space.

Thanks for reading.