Glaxo: AI will be a game-changer for medicine

Warnings about the potential threats of artificial intelligence (AI) technology have been coming thick and fast from a wide range of industries.

But the use of cutting-edge AI could benefit us all by dramatically speeding up the development of new medicines in a ‘game- changing’ moment for the sector, according to one of Britain’s biggest drug firms.

GlaxoSmithKline has begun using AI – which recently shot to prominence amid the growing popularity of websites such as ChatGPT – to make its medical treatments more personalised for individual patients, which in turn can increase the effectiveness of drugs.

Through its network of AI hubs around the world, the largest of which is based near King’s Cross station in London, the firm’s scientists also use AI to help speed up clinical trials.

Most trials involve a process at the beginning during which researchers wade through mountains of anonymous medical data to identify patients who are likely to respond well to a new treatment for illnesses such as cancer.

Effective: GlaxoSmithKline has begun using AI to make its medical treatments more personalised for individual patients

These recruitment efforts are often the longest part of the drug development process, but GSK said that using AI has allowed it to analyse massive quantities of data, making some parts of the clinical trial procedure up to five times faster.

AI has also been found to be useful for increasing the chances of a new medicine being successful in treating patients.

For example, when developing a new drug to treat chronic hepatitis B – a disease which has no cure and kills almost 900,000 people every year – GSK said it took data from an earlier trial and used AI to identify five different patient groups and to predict how they would respond to a new drug. This could increase the chances of success by up to seven times.

In the lab, AI is being used to help GSK’s scientists assess hundreds of potential root causes for a disease in the time it previously took to assess just one.

Kim Branson, GSK’s head of AI, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘AI is game-changing for drug discovery. Our research teams used to look at potential drug targets individually, but they can now investigate hundreds at a time.

‘We have already been able to use AI to cut the time it takes to recruit patients for clinical trials, crunch through many times more data than a human being can and categorise patients to predict their response to a potential treatment.’

GSK is not the only British firm bringing AI to the pharma industry. AIM-listed Poolbeg Pharma, based in London, is using it to analyse data from patients infected with flu with the aim of developing treatments to make symptoms of the illness less severe.

Poolbeg chief executive Jeremy Skillington said: ‘Lots of biotech companies are now linking in with technology companies and joining forces to bring biology and chemistry into the worlds of technology and computers. This is where AI has hit a very interesting crossroads where they can apply super computers to understand biology.’

He added: ‘Once people see AI will save time, will save cost, will improve your risk ratio, then pharma will be all in because they are all looking for new drugs, new targets and new medicines.’

The use of AI in the pharmaceutical industry is likely to boost the economy as Britain positions itself as a life science superpower and a hub for global AI development.

It also provides hope for the UK to rejuvenate its status as a centre for clinical trials and drug creation, which received acclaim for developing Covid vaccines.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk