New research from Bryter, which involved over 200 doctors from the US and the UK, including neurologists, hematologists, and oncologists, offers unique insights into how pharmaceutical companies are perceived when it comes to the use of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) in the research and development of new medications.
These technologies are being used in clinical trials, post-market surveillance, and drug discovery, among other aspects of the drug development process. AI/ML, for example, can help find new drug targets, improve dosage schedules, and even forecast how well a patient will respond to a treatment.
The majority of doctors claim to be very interested in applying AI and ML to their practice. Physicians see a wide range of uses for AI/ML: most anticipate that it would expedite the time it takes to identify new therapies (80%), lead to treatments for a larger range of indications, including rare disorders (75%), and enhance trial design (74%). The majority of doctors (63%) believe that AI will have a major influence on the way they treat their patients. Younger doctors (73%) who have only been practicing for ten years also hold this belief.
According to Ben Gibbons, the founder and manager director of Bryter, “AI has been effectively used by a number of pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs.” The questions are: where do doctors think the AI revolution will come from, whose pharmaceutical companies are at the forefront, and most importantly, who can be trusted by patients to prescribe their medicines safely?
Pfizer (33%) is unquestionably leading the industry in the use of AI/ML in medication discovery, according to the doctors who participated in our poll. Second place goes to Merck & Co. and Novartis (both at 20%), with AstraZeneca (19%), Roche (17%), and GSK (15%) following closely. A lesser percentage of respondents view AbbVie (12%), Bristol-Myers Squibb (12%), Johnson and Johnson (11%), and Sanofi (9%), among other pharmaceutical companies, as leaders. Significantly, 44% of respondents said they have no idea who the leader could be, leaving a gap that pharmaceutical companies could potentially fill.
Approximately 34% of doctors believe that pharmaceutical corporations can safely employ AI/ML to bring pharmaceuticals to market. Pfizer comes in second with 34%, AstraZeneca with 30%, Novartis with 25%, Merck & Co. with 22%, Bristol-Myers Squibb with 21%, and Roche with 20%. Once again, a sizeable portion of doctors (32%) are unsure about whom to trust, which presents a chance for pharmaceutical corporations to seize control of the market for securely introducing medications through AI.
