While the hype around AI is ubiquitous, there is a spectrum of cases demonstrating utility. Industry-wide across the life sciences the potential gains from applying AI to bring new medical products to market faster and improve patient care are recognized. This congress brought together pharmaceutical, biotech, medtech, academic, and other health care interests to present and exchange on successes and challenges. Dominant themes included:
- Data quality is fundamental but remains a critical challenge.
- Involving domain expertise early in any data project is essential.
- Effective communication between domains is key to establish and implement a strategy that achieves the desired goal.
- Large language models are very effective for certain tasks but generalizability cannot be assumed, and human oversight is required.
- Long-term strategy and investment are necessary to reap substantial benefits of advanced analytics, including but not limited to AI. Attempts at quick profit without a well-conceived plan or the required expertise are unlikely to be fruitful.
Date: October 9 – 10
Location: Basel, Switzerland