How is Novartis Capitalizing on AI for Medical Innovations?

Novartis is using ethical AI to enhance its AI-driven innovations.

Artificial intelligence is nothing strange now, as it is being used by almost all businesses in different industries. The rapid digital transformation and technology adoption in recent years has led many companies to extensively invest in AI to drive growth. Novartis International AG is a leading global healthcare company, based out of Switzerland, that has been efficiently capitalizing on its AI capabilities to develop medical innovations. Novartis incorporates digital and disruptive technologies to create transformative treatment and drug discoveries.

Responsibly Handling AI

Everybody is trying to adopt AI, but how many focus on an ethical approach? Artificial intelligence has been hailed for its unending capabilities but has also come under scrutiny for biases, and unethical scenarios.

Novartis works towards a human-centric approach and ethical use of AI. By deploying Ethical AI systems, the company is committing to transparency and trust. AI applications in healthcare include patient monitoring, predictive diagnosis, robotics surgeries, drug development, and more. AI has helped Novartis to improve personalized customer experience, drive automation, etc. To make sure that the AI systems follow ethical boundaries, they have formulated specific principles. According to Novartis, some of them are;

• Human-centric design and deployment of AI systems, respecting the rights and dignity of people, building a mutually beneficial relationship, and continuously monitoring the advances and impacts of these AI systems.
• Maintaining human accountability in designing and deploying AI systems, consistently monitoring and mitigating the negative impacts.
• The data and algorithms used in AI systems should adhere to codes of fairness and non-discrimination, these algorithms should be inclusive and unbiased.
• Governing the use of personal information and monitoring using Global Data Privacy Principles.
• Sustainable designing of AI systems that limits the risks to the environment.

AI in Extensive Medical Innovations

Novartis has successfully applied AI technology broadly across its operations and innovations, to develop drugs and treatments, automate business operations, creating a personalized user experience, and enabling interactions with healthcare professionals and partners.

Novartis deploys Generative Chemistry in its drug discovery process to provide high-quality information and aids the scientists by leveraging machine learning capabilities.

The healthcare company uses an AE Brain to automate repetitive processes, identify potential risks in messages, and unburden its employees. An abundance of text documents is analyzed by this AI system, which later applies Natural Language Processing (NLP) to derive the meaning from the content.

Novartis collaborated with Chinese tech giant Tencent to develop a mini-app known as AI Nurse. The app is an AI-driven disease management tool to enable the prognosis and diagnosis of heart failure in people. AI Nurse leverages several AI algorithms to convert speech-to-text and vice versa, predict the progression of the disease, recommend treatments, tracking healthcare from home, etc. The app enables patients to interact with health care providers and physicians with maximum security and privacy. Last year Novartis collaborated with Microsoft to develop an AI-powered diagnostic tool to detect and aid the treatment of Leprosy.

Building an AI Compatible Infrastructure

Novartis, in 2019, announced its partnership with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build an enterprise-wide data and analytics platform. The collaboration was aimed at integrating real-time data analytics and business transformation into the operations of Novartis by leveraging the capabilities of the extensive cloud services suite from AWS. This new partnership enabled the pharmaceutical company to enhance the operational efficiency in manufacturing and supply chain, and also provide better and intelligent business decisions.

Another collaboration with the tech giant Microsoft resulted in the development of an AI Innovation Lab. This AI lab provides the space to boost the AI capabilities of Novartis. All the research and development, drug discoveries,  development of transformative medicines, and other AI innovations take birth in the Novartis AI Innovation Lab. As the article by Novartis says, "The lab will aim to bring the power of AI to the desktop of every Novartis associate."

Novartis is exploiting the capabilities of AI to enable successful business transformation, medical innovation, and drug development. The company's vast AI portfolio and smart collaborations are proof of its emergence as a focused medical company driven by advanced technologies.