GSK and AstraZeneca discuss AI revolution in drug research and development

As healthcare professionals grapple with the challenge of treating complex diseases, AI offers new hope by accelerating research processes and uncovering unexpected applications for existing medicines.

At the forefront of this revolution are pharmaceutical giants such as GSK And AstraZenecause AI to analyze massive data sets and identify promising drug candidates with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

This will not only streamline drug development but may also reduce the astronomical costs associated with bringing new treatments to market.

One of the most exciting developments in this field is the use of AI to repurpose existing drugs for new indications.

A recent study by GSK at the Alzheimer At an international conference of the association in Philadelphia, it was announced that the company's shingles vaccine Shingrix reduced the risk of dementia by 24%. This result, which was also confirmed by a separate study from the University of Oxford, was made possible by applying artificial intelligence to a database of 100 million anonymized health records.

AI “can process millions of health data points”

Patrick Schwab, senior director of machine learning and artificial intelligence at GSK, explained the process to The Sunday Times: “With records from 100 million people, we're talking about terabytes of data.” He added that the AI ​​algorithm was able to take into account almost 400 variables, ensuring that the results were not distorted by factors such as age, weight and mental health.

“This is only possible because we used machine learning,” Schwab explained.

The implications of this discovery are far-reaching. For decades, scientists had believed there was a link between the herpes virus (which causes shingles) and Alzheimer's disease, but the cost of clinical trials to prove this theory was prohibitive.

However, AI is cost-effective and opens up new possibilities for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's.

Similarly, AI is being used to study why diabetes drugs might reduce the risk of Parkinson's and other degenerative diseases. This cross-disease analysis could lead to breakthroughs in treating multiple conditions with a single drug.

In addition, the technology is proving invaluable for rescuing seemingly unsuccessful drug candidates.