Contributors
Paul Archer, Chief Commercial Strategy Officer
Jim Streeter, President of Technology, CTO
Yahya Anvar, General Manager, Head of OKRA.ai
ISSUE: Rising drug development expenses, limited resources, and economic instability have created a critical need for the life sciences sector to manage costs more effectively. As stakeholders increasingly look toward how artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies will enhance efficiencies, there is a growing focus on how these innovations enable better outcomes and drive savings.
While the potential benefits are easy to identify, the real challenge lies in the execution. Companies must break away from the status quo to fully leverage these tools at scale and realize their true value.
CONTEXT: AI and advanced technologies enable life sciences companies to balance cost management with value delivery by accelerating and improving decision-making throughout the drug development life cycle. This means more efficient operations and outcomes, but requires a transformational shift in the industry's traditional practices. Key steps include upskilling clinical and commercial staff and defining desired outcomes before choosing the technology and strategies that will support them.
SOLUTION: Change is inevitable, but we must ensure manufacturers and agencies are prepared for the adoption of AI and advanced technologies. Personnel education and development, coupled with shifts in how organizations have historically operated, are essential for achieving organizational readiness. Long-term success and medical advances can only be realized when processes, teams, and technology are in harmony.
Embracing AI and technology's growing role in the life sciences
AI and advanced data analytics are transforming strategies from drug development to commercialization. Their true potential lies in boosting productivity, identifying previously hidden trends or data points, and optimizing resource management and efficiency.
Companies must evaluate and select the right technology to fully unlock their potential. However, they should base this choice on more than just appearance or the developer of the solution. It's about finding the right tools designed with deep expert knowledge that will support your organization's specific needs and goals.
This decision isn't about focusing on the upfront cost of procuring these technologies, but rather on the long-term value they deliver. The right technology should showcase its value by accelerating operations through streamlined processes, efficiency, and automation, enhancing the accuracy and speed of data analysis. Measuring these changes in your organization's output is essential to determining the return on investment.
Still, agencies and manufacturers can only fully realize these benefits when the selected platform is easily scalable, intuitive, and future-proofed with continuous enhancements to keep pace with changes (not to mention backed by strong quality control and governance). Different stages of your development life cycle might require different platforms. Here's how our tailored AI solutions at Envision can help:
- iEnvision is a comprehensive platform that centralizes data and streamlines processes across global teams, ensuring consistent, transparent, and efficient operations in medical affairs, from publication planning to compliance
- 4Sight by Envision is an AI-enabled approach that integrates platforms, people, processes, and performance for medical affairs teams, improving the efficiency and impact of insights generation in real time throughout the product life cycle
- OKRA.ai is our dedicated team and technology platform, composed of AI and life sciences experts, using AI to provide predictive analytics and capture actionable insights to forecast patient outcomes, optimize clinical trial designs, and guide market access and medical strategies
- HELIX is a powerful government pricing and analytics software designed to address compliance concerns, ensuring your methodology and calculations align for accurate and compliant results
What sets these solutions apart is the confidence and certainty they provide through development and delivery by our in-house technology and AI teams. While powerful on their own, their combined use delivers priceless benefits, all supported by over 20 years of expertise specifically tailored to life sciences.
Laying the groundwork for effective AI integration
Evaluating and selecting the right AI and tech platforms for your business is just the first step. Implementing these technologies requires a strong foundation with the right platforms, people, and processes. To successfully integrate AI and other technologies into operations, here's what manufacturers and agencies need to focus on:
- Organizational readiness: Technology infrastructure, data management, and governance must work together and be up to the task. This includes strong data security measures and scalable systems that can grow with business needs. Most importantly, we need maturity in collecting, measuring, and managing the data in these assets, ensuring those who work with them stay up-to-date on industry best practices
- Strategic alignment: AI and technology strategies must be aligned with organizational objectives and regulatory requirements to maximize their impact. Identifying the right use cases and clear key performance indicators ensures your AI efforts are making a difference
- People-centric approach: AI and technology platforms are only as effective as the people behind them. Maintaining a people-centric approach involves upskilling and change management to prepare teams for seamless integration. Providing training to build data skills and openly addressing concerns creates a culture that embraces innovation rather than fears it, which is necessary for the evolving pharma industry
- Ongoing investment: Sustained investment in innovation, quality control, and governance will ensure AI and technology platforms are equipped to adapt to industry changes and remain aligned with business, regulatory, and ethical standards
- Continuous monitoring: Implementing robust monitoring and measurement frameworks, such as periodic audits, model evaluations, and quality assurance checks, help identify and address any necessary inefficiencies or biases to keep everything accurate, relevant, and reliable
Enhancing value through the precision and innovation of AI and technology
The life sciences AI and technology market is saturated with options, but not all tools offer the same value. Identifying the high-impact applications for these technologies and knowing where you can get the most bang for your buck is essential. With over 20 years of experience, we've seen the profound impact of these technologies in several areas:
- Informing drug discovery and development: AI accelerates drug discovery and optimizes development by analyzing large datasets – such as electronic health records, genetic information, and clinical trial data – to uncover new therapeutic targets and predict drug efficacy. This approach leads to more efficient identification of novel drug candidates and the repurposing of existing ones, enhancing the overall success rates of drug development
- Informing clinical strategy to maximize success and value for patients and payers: AI provides a strategic edge in clinical trials by analyzing real-world usage patterns across diverse patient populations. By understanding these patterns, we can optimize trial designs, select appropriate endpoints, and identify patient subgroups most likely to benefit. This ultimately supports better decision-making, enhances patient safety, and maximizes value for both patients and payers
- Informing medical strategy and engagement with key opinion leaders (KOLs) and healthcare professionals (HCPs): AI-powered analytics offer deep insights into interactions with KOLs and HCPs by analyzing unstructured data, including patient reviews, doctor notes, and social media. These insights help identify trends, unmet needs, and educational gaps, allowing for tailored communication strategies that strengthen relationships and improve the dissemination of information on new therapies
- Informing launch strategy and patient access: AI assists in developing robust launch strategies by identifying evidence gaps, access issues, and market dynamics. This technology supports efforts to educate HCPs on the latest treatment options, ensuring that drugs reach patients effectively and efficiently. Additionally, AI's predictive analytics capabilities also help anticipate market reactions and strategize accordingly, ensuring successful product launches and sustained market presence
- Monitoring market dynamics to identify opportunities and threats: AI enables real-time monitoring of market dynamics to identify opportunities and threats in patient treatments. By analyzing live data feeds, AI can spot early and late adopters of new treatments, assess therapy suitability for specific patient subgroups, and track competitor actions. This supports a proactive commercial strategy aligned with evolving market needs
Transforming the life sciences agency model
The life sciences industry is at a crossroads, where escalating costs and increasing complexity demand a shift from reactive services to proactive partnerships. By integrating AI and advanced technologies, agencies can now deliver predictive insights, detect adverse events in real time, and innovate commercialization strategies – all while driving better patient outcomes.
The future belongs to those who blend AI's analytical power with the nuance of human creativity. This isn’t just about keeping up; it's about redefining the game. Agencies and manufacturers must embrace a bold, data-driven mindset that fuses technology's precision with strategic foresight and human expertise. It’s time to move from simply interpreting data to creating actionable intelligence that reshapes decisions and accelerates success.