AI an “Unsung Hero” of COVID-19
Saama’s CEO and Founder Suresh Katta joined an all-star panel of life sciences executives and technology experts for a lively, 90-minute discussion on how technology is changing the clinical and R&D landscape. The Super Panel was hosted by PharmaVOICE as part of DIA 2021.
Suresh kicked off the discussion by saying that technology would have the biggest impact on R&D, noting that it was an umbrella for site operations, clinical trials, and patient relations. Because pharma has lagged behind other industries when it comes to technology innovation, Suresh said that “there is a need for a different mindset. We need to think of technology as part of the R&D process, not separate from it.” He went on to challenge the industry to take more risks with technology to keep up with the way it embraces scientific innovation.
Later in the program, answering a question about whether or not AI would live up to the hype for life sciences, Suresh proclaimed that AI was one of the unsung heroes of the pandemic. The technology proved itself by analyzing close to 200 million clinical data points a day to help accelerate the development of a popular COVID-19 vaccine.
“The sponsor got a little nervous because the platform was being so accurate,” Suresh said. “After Last Patient Last Visit, within 22 hours we were able to get them to database lock. And three days later we were able to get the data ready for submission.”
According to Suresh the early adopters of AI in life sciences are fully committed to the technology, firmly believing that they couldn’t afford NOT to leverage AI in clinical trials.
WATCH THE COMPLETE SUPER PANEL
