Highlights from the 2023 NPC Winter Webinar: Emerging Uses of AI in the Life Sciences
The 2023 NPC Webinar explored the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence in the life sciences industry. (720 words, 3 minutes)
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AI’s user-friendly nature makes it an appealing tool for multiple industries, including the life sciences. However, it is also necessary to recognize that AI is limited only to the information it can access. Any mistakes or gaps in the source information can lead to false deductions. In high-risk industries such as the life sciences and healthcare, it’s crucial to understand these limitations.
During the 2023 NPC Winter Webinar, which took place on Wednesday, April 19, 2023, the speakers discussed the world of AI and its many applications in the life sciences. The webinar had a total of 138 attendees. Most self-identified as industry executives and other healthcare professionals, including pharmacists and dietitians, attended the webinar. The delegates were from seven countries: Canada, the United States, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, France, India and Peru.
During the following three weeks, NPC Healthbiz Weekly will summarize each presentation by the panel of experts. These experts included Anastasia Lit, co-founder of the Dubai-based health tech consultancy TechPharus, who presented on intelligence gathering using AI in healthcare. Patrick Massad, Commissioner of the Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board (PAAB), talked about how AI might impact advertising for health products. Dr. Jaggi Rao, Dermatologist and Professor at the University of Alberta, described the intersection of patient care, AI, and machine learning in dermatology.
In upcoming NPC HealthBiz issues, we’ll also address some insightful questions from the webinar attendees and how the panel fielded these questions.
THIS WEEK 04/25/23
Sanofi’s dupilumab injection (Dupixent) is now approved in Canada for children aged six months to five years with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis whose disease is not adequately controlled with topical prescription therapies or when those therapies are not advisable.
The U.S. FDA approved Gamida Cell’s allogeneic cell therapy, omidubicel-onlv (Omisirge), for treating patients 12 years and older with hematologic malignancies scheduled for umbilical cord blood transplantation following myeloablative conditioning to reduce the time to neutrophil recovery and the incidence of infection.
IntelGenx Corp announced that the U.S. FDA approved their new drug application for rizatriptan (RizaFilm VersaFilm 505(b)(2)) for the treatment of acute migraine.
Health Canada has issued a Notice of Compliance approving Sanofi’s nirsevimab (Beyfortus) for the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) lower respiratory tract disease (LRTD) in newborns and infants during their first RSV season and children up to two years of age who remain vulnerable to severe RSV disease through their second RSV season.
LISTEN NOW
In season nine of the NPC Podcast, Anastasia Lit, Co-founder of TechPharus, talks about using AI to enhance medical care and research, the rapid development of software and AI technologies, and how AI is transforming the labour market. Hear her in conversation with podcast hosts Mitch Shannon, Jim Shea and Mark McElwain.
HEALTHBIZ REWIND
This new feature of NPC Healthbiz Weekly looks back at some of the most insightful moments from previous NPC Podcast episodes. In Healthbiz Rewind, you’ll read bold life sci predictions made during the popular Prognostication Korner segment of the NPC Podcast.
Danielle Portnik
Toronto
Ambry Genetics
Season 9, episode 01
Listen to this episode here
What bold predictions will you make about the life sciences industry during the coming 12 to 24 months?
When I think about the work that we’re doing in terms of therapeutic development, in terms of patient identification, or a lot of the ultra-rare conditions that we still have a very challenging time diagnosing because of looking at specific genes versus looking at the entire genome, I think our diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities are going to expand exponentially because we’re going to be able to grow at scale.
Many recent projects, especially with the advent of the cloud and the storage capacity that it provides, allow us to bring together economies of scale from patients around the world, bringing different ethnographic backgrounds into our data sets, which enriches them significantly. For me, that’s going to be probably the biggest thing. I think that is going to accelerate over the next couple of years across both clinical and development areas.
Beyond that, we’re already seeing the use of RNA in standard DNA testing. We already know that if you add RNA to the genetic panel for cancer, you’re going to pick up one patient in every 50 who would have been missed because standard DNA alone wouldn’t capture those mutations. So we’re already seeing our ability to do this expand incredibly fast. I’m excited about what this means for the future of true precision and personalized medicine.
NEXT WEEK
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