Ramesh Durvasula, Senior Vice President of R&D IT at Eli Lilly, discusses the challenges in biotech research and how AI is revolutionizing the healthcare industry. Topics include AI's potential in drug discovery and clinical development, challenges of applying AI in rare disease research, benefits of AI in life sciences and the concept of copilots, and exploring the potential of digital twins in healthcare and other industries.
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Quick takeaways
Generative AI is being used in the healthcare industry to accelerate the discovery and creation of new medicines in both drug discovery and clinical development.
AI has immense potential in rare disease research, but the limited dataset poses challenges that require caution in over-reliance on algorithms without considering data size, volume, variety, and quality.
Deep dives
The Biggest Challenges in Healthcare and Life Sciences
Ramesh Dervasoula, SVP of R&D IT at Eli Lilly, discusses the biggest problems in the healthcare and life sciences industry. He highlights how AI, specifically generative AI and machine learning, is being leveraged to accelerate the discovery and creation of new medicines. AI is used in both the drug discovery and clinical development spaces to find biological targets and identify therapeutic agents. He also emphasizes the unique challenges faced in researching rare diseases, given the limited data available, and the need to collect more diverse patient information for better insights.
The Potential of AI in Rare Disease Research
Ramesh discusses the potential of AI in rare disease research. He explains that while AI has immense potential in leveraging data for deeper insights, the limited dataset for rare diseases poses a challenge. The larger the dataset, the more refined and predictive the models can become. However, with rare diseases, the population and available data are very limited, requiring caution in not over-indexing on AI algorithms without considering data size, volume, variety, and quality. Ramesh suggests exploring opportunities to collect a wider variety of data about rare disease patients beyond the molecular nature of the disease.
The Role of AI in Clinical Development and Data Accessibility
Ramesh talks about the role of AI in clinical development and addresses the challenges of data accessibility and patient privacy. He emphasizes the importance of responsible and ethical AI practices at Eli Lilly, ensuring patient privacy and consent are respected. Ramesh highlights the potential for AI to enhance clinical trials and improve data analysis, leading to greater insights and better outcomes. He envisions a future where digital copilots and conversational AI assist scientists, researchers, and clinicians, making them more productive and efficient. The copilots would continuously learn from the decisions and wisdom within the organization, providing personalized assistance and deeper insights.
Today’s guest is Ramesh Durvasula, Senior Vice President of R&D IT at Eli Lilly. Ramesh joins Emerj Senior Editor Matthew DeMello on the program today to survey the biggest challenges in biotech research and how emerging capabilities, particularly in generative AI, are paving the way for a new future for the industry. If you’ve enjoyed or benefited from some of the insights of this episode, consider leaving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and let us know what you learned, found helpful, or liked most about this show!
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