Emerging AI: From bench to bedside... to Big Data
Danielle Portnik sees an intelligent future for Pharma (320 words, 2 min)
The growing field of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help connect therapies with patients who need them, according to Danielle Portnik, Regional Business Manager, International at Ambry Genetics.
“Currently, many of our patients, especially those with rare diseases, are left without answers. More than 40 per cent of patients with rare diseases are misdiagnosed at least once in their diagnostic odyssey,” Portnik (photo below) said during the 15th Annual National Pharmaceutical Congress.
One opportunity for AI pertains to how pharmaceutical suppliers can reach out to patients, Portnik said. AI programs could deliver assessments to patients and schedule follow-ups remotely based on established criteria.
“Next is what we then do [with the aggregate] data,” said Portnik. “There are incredible advances in machine learning right now that can examine a plethora of patient data in a given population. That allows us to pull up certain symptoms or phenotypes together to recognize patterns, and hopefully shorten the diagnostic odyssey.”
“If we [improve AI diagnostic tools] in concert with improving access to screening through AI bots, we can leverage both technologies to identify novel pathways for therapeutic development,” Portnik explained.
“At the same time, we need to leverage AI on the Pharma/biotech side to know what trials are out there, align patients with the best therapies, and reuse current [therapeutics] for novel indications.”
Questions remain, Portnik noted. It will be crucial to determine a best path to full AI integration and investigate which therapies would most benefit from automated patient connection.
“If we’re already connected through AI, can we use this to inform patients of what has come of their data, of what we’ve discovered, and increase their access with reduced time to diagnosis? Finally, how do we optimize those outcomes?”
“This sounds far off in the future,” Portnik acknowledged. “But it is happening now. The future of personal precision medicine is here.”
THIS WEEK 02/22/22
UCB Canada announced that Health Canada has granted approval to BIMZELX (bimekizumab injection) for the treatment of adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. BIMZELX is the first IL-17A and IL-17F inhibitor to be approved in the Americas.
Novavax, Inc. announced that Health Canada has granted authorization for Nuvaxovid Covid-19 Vaccine (Recombinant protein, Adjuvanted) in adults. The vaccine, also known as NVX-CoV2373, is the first protein-based vaccine to be authorized for use in Canada.
Jamp Pharma Group, a Montreal-based pharmaceutical company, announced the launch of Guanfacine XR, a generic version of INTUNIV XR from Takeda Canada Inc. for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The introduction of this generic drug will make treatment more accessible to patients and reduce costs for public and private drug plans.
Pfizer and OPKO Health announced that the European Commission has granted marketing approval for the next-generation long-acting recombinant human growth hormone NGENLA (somatrogon), a once-weekly injection to treat children and teenagers from three years of age and up who have growth hormone deficiency.
LISTEN NOW
David Renwick, General Manager of Emergent Biosolutions, talks about how his time as a consultant affected his career journey, how the pandemic changed the office, and dealing with Covid-19 alongside the opioid crisis.
He joins our co-hosts Mitch Shannon, Jim Shea and Mark McElwain, in the seventh episode of our sixth season.
CANADIAN HEALTHCARE MARKETING HALL OF FAME
The Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame awards were established in 2002 to honour healthcare marketers who have contributed to our vocation and inspire others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the selection committee’s view, they stand for a representative cross-section of the qualities that make our business unique and fulfilling. Each week, NPC Healthbiz Weekly will acknowledge one past Hall of Fame Honouree.
2007 Inductee
Brenda Pratscher
Quebec
Editor’s Note: Brenda left Ogilvy Montreal in 2018 and is now an Adoption Coordinator at Frontier Animal Society.
It was a “fluke” that brought Brenda Pratscher to the world of advertising, but it was not by chance that she became a fixture on the media planning scene for a quarter-century. Despite her suggestions that “I simply fell into the agency business,” the Vice President, Media Director of Ogilvy Montreal has been strategically on track since her humble beginnings as a junior media estimator at MacLaren Advertising in Montreal in the late ‘70s. From there she would build her credentials as a crackerjack media buyer/planner at Young & Rubicam, with an upwardly mobile move to media supervisor, at the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) agency, where she would refine her grasp of media measurements and other tools of the trade.
She considers landing the job at Ogilvy her biggest “breakthrough” and challenge. Ogilvy, which was outsourcing their media at the time, turned to Pratscher to build a media department from the ground up. It was a defining moment for the Montreal native, who remains grateful to the agency’s powers-that-be for “putting their confidence in me.”
Little wonder that over the next 18 years, others would also put their trust in Pratscher’s abilities to help them develop and execute media plans including major national consumer accounts such as Standard Life, IBM, Wonder Bra, and Seagram on the consumer side, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, and Stiefel on the healthcare side.
Referring to the pharma industry as a “tight-knit family,” Pratscher concedes she’s developed a soft spot for pharma, which she says is completely different from the consumer side of advertising. She suggests the rewards have outweighed the challenges, having been a catalyst for many “firsts,” in media planning, including the launch of the BMS antibiotic Tequin (gatifloxacin), which utilized small space advertising, a novel idea that caused a stir among journal publishers and advertisers. The small space format, a common practice in journal advertising today, began as a small space ad on the front cover of l’Actualité Médicale, followed by several small space “teasers” in the interior of the book leading up to the main launch ad.
With strict guidelines governing healthcare advertising, “firsts” are particularly important today, maintains Pratscher, citing the example of a launch for a new indication for BMS’ antihypertensive Avapro (irbesartan), where a unique drop-down inside front cover gatefold “was extremely impactful in terms of placement.”
One of her biggest concerns in the current healthcare environment is that medical journal advertising has lost its importance for some pharma clients. Many new product managers tend not to see the value of medical journals. “It has been proven over and over again that within the promotional mix, medical journals are extremely efficient [very positive ROIs] and are underused. We also have an industry-accepted readership study that indicates that doctors love their medical journals--they read them and have their favourites.”
In future, Pratscher expects that the Internet will continue to influence the healthcare arena and follow consumer trends in terms of being an integral part of any plan. She suggests the only negative aspect is “it’s going to eat into existing dollars, but it’s a positive evolving step that everyone is going to have to adapt to.”
For now, Pratscher’s major focus is on having “happy clients,” and having happy clients suggests, “you did a really good job and that’s the bottom line.” How does she manage to keep those clients happy? “I think I am perceived as being a very tough business person, but fair. It’s a reputation that I’m very proud to have,” she says.
NEXT WEEK
In the 03/01 edition of the NPC Healthbiz Weekly, more from the powerhouse panels of the 15th Annual National Pharmaceutical Congress. It’s easy to get your no-charge subscription and have the issue sent to your phone or inbox each Tuesday at 6:00 a.m. sharp.
Stay safe, stay sure, and stay on your game. We’ll see you again next week.