The global AI healthcare market is set to exceed $200 billion by 2030, showing the advanced technology is set to have significant benefits across life sciences. Medical writers are among the many roles within life sciences that stand to benefit the most from AI’s prowess. Medical writers are tasked with producing healthcare content, scientific, disease or drug-related documents, regulatory or research papers and more. With its ability to create compelling, human-like content based on large datasets, Generative AI has already proven its value, with impressive brands like Novartis investing in the technology.
Medical writers are responsible for comprehending copious amounts of data and presenting it in text form, yet many are still unaware of how AI can help expedite and make their writing processes more efficient and accurate. In order to integrate new technologies, those working in the field must understand the benefits of adopting AI and feel comfortable leveraging automation solutions in their day-to-day routines.
Accelerating the writing processes through Generative AI
Implementing AI can seem daunting at first but is actually a seamless process when all of the benefits, potential risks and best practices are outlined. Medical writers are often expected to comprehend and communicate scientific and clinical data to a number of stakeholders in an easy to read, digestible way – a typically time-consuming and manual process. Now Generative AI can assist by sifting through larger amounts of data before generating human-like text, reducing their errors at-scale and encouraging humans to focus on more strategic and critical thinking assignments.
Automating parts of the clinical document landscape is done through the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and advanced Machine Learning (ML) techniques. This combination helps create text by pulling from existing data and experiences to generate new content. Most importantly, AI enables medical writers to adhere to regulatory requirements while being more efficient and productive.
Medical writers used to be faced with monotonous processes, but now have access to solutions that allow them to reimagine the future of their work. Those medical writers that consider content automation tools an assistant can shift from writing to editing and add some fun through AI. Generative AI can create human-like text and generate new content at a much faster rate, with overall document quality improving right from the beginning. Writers will also be able to summarize large sets of data and explain analysis and mimic human knowledge at levels that have not been reached before. All of these capabilities allow medical writers to save time and costs.
Is all AI created equal?
With revolutionary products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT coming to market and significant investment poured into various startups, 2023 was the year of Generative AI. Because Generative AI has the ability to learn and make decisions based on the content it has access to, only specific solutions are viable for medical writers. When considering Generative AI solutions, life science brands must prioritize platforms that are hosted in fully secure, private environments that meet the industry’s strict regulations. This ensures medical writers are addressing concerns around data security and enables high fidelity automation for non-clinical and clinical documents.
Long term benefits of AI in life sciences
Developing clinical study reports and other reports for the drug approval process is a large portion of a medical writer’s responsibilities. When Generative AI is applied, it can help bring drugs to market faster by slashing writing times and improving the consistency and reliability of reports. Data crunching and report drafting is a time-consuming and monotonous journey for all involved, but once new models of Generative AI are incorporated into a closed and secure data environment, humans are able to automate the lengthy process. Generative AI streamlines reports, provides accurate results at-scale, empowering life science companies to significantly speed up the approval process. Also, companies that adopt AI technologies will attract best talent over time.
As medical writers and other life sciences professionals continue to find new ways to implement Generative AI, its capabilities will continue to foster innovation. It is imperative that all professionals in the life sciences industry receive proper training and education in order for everyone to feel confident with bringing AI into their work on a long term basis.
Emmanuel Walckenaer
Emmanuel Walckenaer is CEO of Yseop.
