The pharmaceutical sector is one of the sectors that is taking the most advantage of Artificial Intelligence, and in fact, according to the informs Ascendant of the subsidiary of Indra Minsait, three out of four pharmaceutical companies design their products and services, specifically its medications, relying on AI. They also use it to optimize sector-specific operations, as well as in cybersecurity, marketing and systems.
The report, titled AI: X-ray of a revolution underwayis responsible for analyzing the level of adoption of Artificial Intelligence in both private companies and public institutions. It details the specific operations on which companies focus or will focus their efforts on the use of AI.
In general, its goals are improving the speed and accuracy of compound discovery, predicting outcomes in clinical trials, optimizing manufacturing processes, and intelligent supply chain management.
33% of the companies that responded to the survey that was used to prepare the report say that they already apply AI to analyze diseases. Another 29% do it to develop and manufacture medicines.
For the report, there are four main dimensions to analyze the level of maturity of pharmaceutical companies in terms of adoption of AI, especially in terms of motivation and adoption. In the case of motivation, the companies surveyed indicate the achievement of operational excellence as the main reason. Thus, 70% of those questioned use it to achieve more efficiency in their operations, and see it as key to improving their competitiveness.
Two other motivations for using it are the improvement in decision making, mentioned by 34% of those surveyed. For 31%, the motivation is to improve the experience of clients and citizens with whom they interact. Regarding adoption, the areas with the greatest focus are the internal operations specific to the sector, in 65% of cases; and the application of AI to risk management and cybersecurity, by 54%.
But pharmaceutical companies are also encountering obstacles that are slowing down their path to applying AI. Among them, the shortage of skills and talent of professionals specialized in AI (36%), the lack of strategic vision of senior management (35%) and the uncertainty caused by a variable regulatory framework depending on geography and the sector in which development and deployment phase (31%).
The Ascendant report also points out that the emergence of AI in pharmaceutical companies has generated very high expectations in the sector, since its ability to automate complex tasks with high added value is opening up many possibilities.
This means that AI has the potential to become an essential tool to speed up the development of new medicines, improve operational efficiency and serve as support to solve the main challenges of the sector.
According to Arancha Pérez-Navarro, Director of consumer, retail and pharma at Minsait«Artificial intelligence offers companies of all sizes the opportunity to increase their competitiveness and integrate solutions that not only transform products and services, but also optimize processes and improve strategic decision making, revolutionizing the way companies operate and being an ally in the evolution of pharmaceutical companies, a key economic piece at the European and national level«.
In addition, he added that in the next three years the sector plans to invest 8,000 million euros to promote research, as well as to improve production processes, digitalization and sustainability. With this, pharmaceutical companies also want to promote global technological and strategic content activities to address barriers relying on AI.
