Growing role of AI in healthcare: Pharma giants make big investments in 2020

Summary

• Artificial Intelligence is proving a game-changer for the healthcare industry by providing solutions for drug discovery and development.
• Pharmaceutical and biotech companies are making investments and partnerships with AI service providers.
• With several AI applications, healthcare companies are driving innovation and developing new business strategies.

Healthcare industry is already using artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose diseases and analyse patients’ data and scans. Now, pharma and biotech players are also harnessing AI for the development of new therapies. Artificial intelligence has the potential to enhance clinical effectiveness as well as drug discovery by decoding big data collections into actionable insights.

For pharmaceutical companies, the smart approach to improve big data and artificial intelligence expertise is via partnerships or collaborations with established technology players.

AI transforming the healthcare industry

There are numerous capacities where artificial intelligence is evolving as a game-changer for the biopharma industry. AI provides solutions for radiology, drug discovery and development as well as the patient risk identification.

Moreover, several AI-based techniques are under development for the identification of new potential therapies. This could improve efficiency and the success rate of drug discovery and speed up the developments to bring new medicines for deadly infections.

The pharmaceutical and biotech companies have been keenly watching the AI space and making investments and partnerships with AI service providers. These partnerships are signifying the deep-rooted research and innovation. Several AI applications are building momentum on how the healthcare industry players are making innovations and developing their business strategies.

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With this backdrop, let us discuss some latest investments in the field of AI from big pharma players:

AstraZeneca’s partnership with deep-learning algorithm developer

On 7 December 2020, AstraZeneca plc (LON:AZN) revealed its partnership with Qure.ai for integrating AI-based solutions for the early identification of lung carcinoma. Qure.ai is a deep-learning algorithm developer.

The partnership between AstraZeneca and Qure.ai is through the Emerging Markets Health Innovation Hubs programme of AstraZeneca.

The collaboration shows the ongoing commitment to integrating innovative new technologies into the healthcare system of developing markets.

The partnership intends to utilise and increase the use of deep-learning algorithm-based technology of Qure.ai to improve early-stage detection of lung cancer. Further, this will reduce mortality rates and enhance patient outcomes. The technology has the potential to offer clinicians faster and more accurate diagnoses based on chest X-rays.

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GSK’s partnership with NVIDIA

Pharma behemoth GlaxoSmithKline (LON:GSK) on 5 October 2020 announced a partnership with NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), an American multinational technology company. The collaboration also included the AI group of GSK, which applies computation to the discovery process of drug and vaccine.

With this partnership, NVIDIA will deliver its knowhow in GPU optimisation and high-performance computational pipeline advancement, including NVIDIA Clara Discovery™.

Clara Discovery™ is a new collection of optimised computational drug discovery applications along with frameworks.

Moreover, GSK will have access to NVIDIA’s Cambridge-1, the most powerful AI supercomputer in the UK.  Together, GSK and NVIDIA will work for the advancement of new drug and vaccines discovery.

Roche partners with AI leaders

On 18 November 2020, Hoffmann-La Roche Limited (Roche Canada) unveiled the Roche AI Centre of Excellence (CoE). This is the first collaborative centre that combines the capability of three national AI institutes- Amii, Mila and the Vector Institute, under the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy of CIFAR.

All three institutes have established a track record of excellence in artificial intelligence research and facilitating industry application.

The Company notified that the CoE would provide AI-based digital solutions to optimise and cut the cost of healthcare delivery and improve health outcomes. Moreover, with this collaboration, Canada will learn and quickly respond to opportunities and potential challenges in the healthcare system.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals collaborated with Exscientia for AI for cardiovascular and oncological drug discovery

On 9 January 2020, Bayer Pharmaceuticals entered into a three-year, multi-target collaboration with a UK-based AI-driven drug discovery player Exscientia Ltd.

With this partnership, the two companies are working on early research projects, combining the proprietary AI drug discovery platform of Exscientia and data and Bayer’s drug discovery capabilities.

The collaboration aims to identify and enhance novel lead structures for the potential drug candidates, which are used to treat cardiovascular and oncology indications.

The partnership focuses on early-stage research and development by using an AI-based algorithm to predict potential drug candidates. Exscientia’s AI-driven drug discovery technology offers novel chemical matter for targets, which are difficult-to-address. This technology could also identify new drug molecules more effectively via fewer optimisation cycles.

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