How AI can ad­dress on­go­ing chal­lenges in the life sci­ences in­dus­try

So far, on­ly 22% of life sci­ences or­ga­ni­za­tions have adopt­ed AI at scale, yet 86% of health­care and life sci­ences lead­ers be­lieve AI will be the key to suc­cess in the next five years. Amidst de­layed clin­i­cal tri­als, reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals, and com­mer­cial re­leas­es that cost or­ga­ni­za­tions near­ly $40,000 per day and con­tribute to rough­ly $500,000 in lost sales, the in­dus­try is in need of change. So why the hes­i­ta­tion? There is no doubt that AI tech­nol­o­gy has the pow­er to re­shape the life sci­ences in­dus­try and help solve long-stand­ing chal­lenges.

With the help of AI, life sci­ences or­ga­ni­za­tions can make the best use of their da­ta quick­ly while au­tomat­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive tasks and iden­ti­fy­ing po­ten­tial re­al-time risks. These new tools al­so help per­son­al­ize the pa­tient care jour­ney and im­prove HCP en­gage­ment.

Sales­force’s Life Sci­ences Cloud is at the fore­front of AI adop­tion in the life sci­ences in­dus­try, de­vel­op­ing so­lu­tions to stream­line clin­i­cal tri­als, en­hance pa­tient care, and op­ti­mize rou­tine process­es for staff. By em­bed­ding trust­ed AI with­in the flow of work, Life Sci­ences Cloud em­pow­ers phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and medtech or­ga­ni­za­tions to de­liv­er time­ly and per­son­al­ized care, ul­ti­mate­ly lead­ing to bet­ter pa­tient out­comes.

Stream­lin­ing Clin­i­cal Tri­al Process­es

Can­di­date re­cruit­ment is one of the most chal­leng­ing as­pects of a clin­i­cal tri­al, tak­ing up to one-third of a study’s length for re­cruit­ment alone. On­board­ing can al­so be dif­fi­cult to car­ry out. 80% of tri­als fail to on­board the re­quired num­ber of par­tic­i­pants and have to ex­tend their time­lines, caus­ing de­lays as a re­sult. AI can as­sist in min­i­miz­ing time and re­source de­mands dur­ing the var­i­ous stages of these stud­ies.

To help mit­i­gate these is­sues, Sales­force Life Sci­ences Cloud cre­at­ed AI-pow­ered Par­tic­i­pant Re­cruit­ment and En­roll­ment to en­able con­tract re­search or­ga­ni­za­tions (CROs), sites, and spon­sors to iden­ti­fy qual­i­fied, di­verse can­di­dates and re­cruit them to ap­pro­pri­ate clin­i­cal tri­als. The tool us­es AI to quick­ly match el­i­gi­ble can­di­dates to tri­als based on var­i­ous cri­te­ria, re­duc­ing man­u­al analy­sis and screen­ing time. Sites and spon­sors can al­so cre­ate pa­tient por­tals that sim­pli­fy tri­al dis­cov­ery, al­low­ing in­ter­est­ed pa­tients to eas­i­ly ap­ply. Co­or­di­na­tors can fur­ther stream­line en­roll­ment with cus­tomiz­able e-con­sent and as­sess­ment forms.

Us­ing Sales­force’s agen­tic AI lay­er, Agent­force, clin­i­cal sites can iden­ti­fy a seg­ment of pa­tients that live with­in prox­im­i­ty of the tri­al site us­ing in­sights from da­ta sources, such as spread­sheets, elec­tron­ic health records (EHRs), and med­ical net­works. Co­or­di­na­tors can use Agent­force to con­nect with pa­tients who are both qual­i­fied and a good fit for the tri­al.

Im­prov­ing Com­mer­cial En­gage­ment

Amidst da­ta si­los, ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­den, and in­for­ma­tion over­load, it can be chal­leng­ing for HCPs to fo­cus on pri­or­i­tiz­ing their pa­tients in to­day’s en­vi­ron­ment. AI will al­so help im­prove health­care en­gage­ment and in­ter­ac­tions, from start to fin­ish. AI can help sim­pli­fy key ac­count man­age­ment, iden­ti­fy op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vice kit­ting, man­age re­bates, and dis­trib­ute sam­ples, all with trust at the fore­front. This helps HCPs get the in­for­ma­tion they need, when they need it, and on the chan­nel of their choice.

Sales­force’s Life Sci­ences Cloud for Cus­tomer En­gage­ment lever­ages AI to pro­vide a uni­fied view of HCPs across mar­ket­ing, sales, and med­ical teams, re­duc­ing re­dun­dant out­reach, and en­sur­ing com­pli­ance with au­dit trails and re­gion­al reg­u­la­tions. AI-pow­ered in­sights, of­fline mo­bile ca­pac­i­ties, and en­gage­ment track­ing en­able sales reps to de­liv­er per­son­al­ized pre­sen­ta­tions and share con­tent – on the right chan­nel, at the right time. With the help of AI agents, the field can be more pro­duc­tive and make the most of their in­ter­ac­tions, MSLs can pro­vide the best con­tent to KOLs, and mar­ket­ing can op­ti­mize their cam­paign strat­e­gy with tar­get­ed out­reach and seg­men­ta­tion.

Per­son­al­iz­ing the Pa­tient Care Jour­ney

Im­prov­ing out­comes is the ul­ti­mate goal for care teams. It’s im­por­tant to sup­port pa­tients holis­ti­cal­ly and proac­tive­ly so they can re­ceive the best pos­si­ble care ef­fi­cient­ly and smooth­ly.

AI can be used to an­a­lyze pa­tient da­ta and al­low HCPs to de­liv­er bet­ter care, by of­fer­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, op­ti­miz­ing pro­gram per­for­mance, and pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als to elim­i­nate bar­ri­ers and con­nect pa­tients with the right ther­a­pies at the right time.

Sales­force’s Pa­tient Ben­e­fits Ver­i­fi­ca­tion and Pa­tient Pro­gram Out­come Man­age­ment helps life sci­ences or­ga­ni­za­tions en­hance pa­tient ac­cess, en­gage­ment, and ad­her­ence through AI-pow­ered in­sights and au­toma­tion. Pa­tient Ben­e­fits Ver­i­fi­ca­tion au­to­mates cov­er­age analy­sis, proac­tive alerts, and bulk ver­i­fi­ca­tions with Agent­force, en­sur­ing seam­less treat­ment con­ti­nu­ity. Pa­tient Pro­gram Out­come Man­age­ment us­es AI to track and op­ti­mize pa­tient sup­port pro­grams, im­prov­ing med­ica­tion ad­her­ence through per­son­al­ized en­gage­ment.

Chal­lenges and Con­sid­er­a­tion

While AI’s ben­e­fits are trans­for­ma­tive for the life sci­ences in­dus­try, there are still some im­por­tant is­sues to con­sid­er. Ad­dress­ing da­ta pri­va­cy and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns is im­por­tant in every in­dus­try, but es­pe­cial­ly in life sci­ences, as or­ga­ni­za­tions are deal­ing with sen­si­tive pa­tient da­ta. Sales­force takes the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure Life Sci­ences Cloud us­es AI re­spon­si­bly and se­cure­ly, keep­ing da­ta safe and main­tain­ing com­pli­ance with evolv­ing in­dus­try reg­u­la­tions like HIPAA, GDPR, and GxP.

While keep­ing pa­tient da­ta se­cure, Sales­force al­so bal­ances adop­tion and change man­age­ment with speed with Agent­force. The AI as­sis­tant is both pow­er­ful and user-friend­ly, with a low code in­ter­face that al­lows users to build an agent in min­utes, max­i­miz­ing ex­ist­ing Sales­force in­vest­ments.

AI is set to trans­form the life sci­ences in­dus­try by con­nect­ing pa­tients with life-en­hanc­ing ther­a­pies and in­ter­ven­tions, faster than ever. With this new tech­nol­o­gy, or­ga­ni­za­tions will be able to make progress in ad­vanc­ing med­i­cine, con­tin­ue op­ti­miz­ing clin­i­cal tri­als, and ac­cel­er­ate drug dis­cov­ery, ul­ti­mate­ly lead­ing to bet­ter pa­tient out­comes.

Learn more about Sales­force Life Sci­ences Cloud.