Pharma's next big discovery: AI

In the latest Expert View piece on artificial intelligence (AI), Christopher Bouton, founder and chief executive of Vyasa, a provider of software for the life sciences and healthcare industries, analyzes what the future holds for biopharma in an AI-driven world.

Data is at the core of the life sciences and healthcare industries. Billions of digital records relating to areas such as drug development, clinical trials, competitive intelligence and real-world outcomes are critical to everyday decision-making.

But in the digital age, humans cannot physically read and digest every bit of information relevant to a given decision. In addition, almost every organization has what is called 'dark' or 'siloed' data – valuable data that is not being used, or that organizations don’t know they have. It is estimated that as much as 90% of the data within a given organization is dark or siloed. As a result, pharmaceutical companies are making important decisions with incomplete information.