No longer artificial – AI in pharma and healthcare - Pharmaphorum

Eleven years is a long time to be writing about'digital pharma', and I do indeed remember when it was all My First Twitter Account and iPhone Apps as far as the eye could see. Over those years some technologies have entered the digital health mainstream, while others have failed to live up to their promise, never emerging from what Gartner's Hype Cycle terms the Trough of Disillusionment. Stuck in those doldrums we might find, amongst others, Google Glass, Google's smart contact lens and Nokia's digital health ambitions, but one tech sector that is living up to the hype is artificial intelligence (AI). It has certainly featured on its fair share of'next big thing in health tech' lists over the years, but the last few months have seen a real sense of momentum build around the area. To stick with Gartner's Hype Cycle model for a moment, AI in pharma and healthcare is being rapidly driven up by what the consultants term the Slope of Enlightenment and towards the Plateau of Productivity. The headwinds for this were certainly there in 2018, when all the signs were that AI in pharma was on the rise.