Industry Insight
The future of pharma: how AI will reshape drug development and patient care in 2025
Vikas Jain at Tata Consultancy Services examines three key avenues for AI to be adopted by the pharma industry and the benefits that each adoption can have
A growing global population coupled with the escalating disease outbreaks fuelled by climate change are placing immense pressure on the pharmaceutical industry, driving an exponential demand for new and existing treatments, as projections indicate nearly 20% of adults will live with major illnesses by 2040. 1
Faced with such challenges, the future of pharma relies upon harnessing innovative technologies to drive the delivery of drugs and therapies. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one such technology poised to reshape every facet of pharma from the earliest stages of drug research to the production and rollout of life-changing treatments.
Across the healthcare industry, its benefits are already coming to light, with more than 70% of healthcare organisations having implemented or begun pursuing AI capabilities throughout 2024.2 From treatment delivery to patient care management, here are three AI trends set to transform the pharmaceutical sector in the new year.
From in vivo to in silico: the rise of virtual drug and device development
With the anticipated increase in rates of illnesses, the development of new drugs and therapies is critical to maximising available treatments. Generative AI (genAI) is changing how this research is being done, allowing for faster go-to-market strategies for new drugs as well as new futuristic approaches.
AI driven in silico drug testing is shifting the pharma sector away from traditional, time-consuming in vivo methods to enable the virtual testing of new drug molecules and medical devices, significantly accelerating the development process.
Meanwhile, AI is enabling pharma operators to test new molecule design methods such as de novo drug and protein design where they can generate new compounds with the required pharmacological properties. AI tools can also reduce the time taken to get these drugs from lab to market. Trained to synthesis and extract specific information, AI can optimise a variety of documentation procedures integral to drug delivery, including automating clinical data management, pharmacovigilance case processing and regulatory submissions. What’s more, AI-enabled digital twins of organs are providing new virtual testing grounds for administering medication and clinical trial simulations, bolstering the production of new therapies.
Personalising the patient journey
Hospitals and health institutions failing to meet the needs of specific patients can result in repeat visits and increase strain on healthcare resources, with one in seven A&E patients found to be repeat visitors with unmet needs.3
Healthcare systems hold vast databases, and AI algorithms can generate valuable insights from such data; identifying optimal therapies, predicting treatment responses, and even anticipating potential adverse effects. These insights empower healthcare providers to make more informed decisions, tailoring treatments to individual patient needs and genetic profiles.
Specialty pharma is set to benefit from these AI-enabled insights, ensuring therapies and medicines used to treat rare diseases are targeted to the patient’s condition. With the high cost of these treatments, their effective usage is essential in reducing financial waste.
Protecting patient privacy using synthetic data
AI algorithms can generate synthetic data that can be harnessed across the pharma value chain, including in synthetic control arm trials, drug and device analysis and specific multimodal training simulators.
By using this synthetic data scientists and researchers protect patient privacy by mimicking the properties of real data without including any personally identifiable information. AI-generative synthetic data will be essential to reducing the risk of exposing sensitive patient information if data is compromised.
Ultimately, the future of pharma relies upon the intelligent application of AI, ushering in an era of unprecedented progress and possibility. From accelerating drug discovery to personalising patient treatments and optimising operations, AI is driving a new era of innovation and efficiency across the pharmaceutical industry.
Faced with escalating global health challenges, AI will enable pharma professionals to tackle the growing demands for new and existing therapies and treatments, ensuring better health outcomes for patients worldwide.
Vikas Jain is vice president and business head of Life Sciences at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and has over three decades of industry experience. He currently heads TCS’ life sciences industry unit having a global customer base. In his previous roles, he was the global head for TCS’ Life Sciences and Healthcare business within Enterprise Growth Group, managed large client relationships, headed TCS operations for a large region in the US and incubated technology Centre of Entrepreneurship. He has played an instrumental role in the industry leading growth of TCS’ life sciences business, success of several large and path breaking transformational programmes, along with nurturing and growing some marquee client relationships.
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