Pharmaceutical companies are harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the traditionally arduous process of clinical trials, potentially saving both time and significant sums of money. These human studies, crucial to drug development, can take years and accrue costs in the billions.
AI's involvement in drug discovery has been experimental for years, with the hope that machines might be the key to discovering the next big pharmaceutical breakthrough. While a few AI-selected compounds are in development, their outcomes remain to be seen.
Reuters interviews with several pharmaceutical company executives, drug regulators, public health experts, and AI firms show, however, that the technology is playing a sizeable and growing role in human drug trials.
Companies like Amgen Inc
Amgen's AI tool, ATOMIC, scans large datasets, ranking clinics and doctors based on past patient recruitment performances. This tool has proven to expedite the trial enrollment process, with Amgen aiming to utilize ATOMIC for most of its studies by 2024. By 2030, they project that AI will reduce drug development time by two years.
Though AI holds promise, concerns, especially surrounding external control arms in trials, linger.
Richard Pazdur, from the FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence, raised concerns about potential inaccuracies when comparing non-randomized data sets.
Despite AI's potential to reshape clinical trials, regulators remain clear: the stringent standards for proving a drug's safety and effectiveness won't be compromised.
