Lexalytics®, the leader in “words-first” machine learning and artificial intelligence, announced today it is partnering with True North Solutions and Glasshouse Health to help Medical Affairs teams better apply the latest in artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) technologies and approaches to improve insights, efficiencies, and patient outcomes. True North and Glasshouse bring decades of domain expertise in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in the North American and European markets, respectively, and will work with Lexalytics to help customers understand how applied AI and machine learning (ML) solve real-world business problems.
Off-the-shelf technology solutions tend to be poorly suited to address the unique needs of Medical Affairs in areas such as insight generation, automation, compliance review, educational gap assessment, congress and publication planning, and digital innovation. Lexalytics, True North, and Glasshouse have partnered to help Med Affairs functions better understand how to apply AI and NLP to address all of the noted issues, as well as the many other responsibilities of a Medical Affairs department.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been applying machine learning to many of the facets of pharmaceutical medical affairs and commercial functions to improve efficiencies, insights, and patient outcomes, and our customers have seen tremendous success through those efforts,” said Jeff Catlin, CEO of Lexalytics. “By partnering with the skilled teams at True North and Glasshouse, we hope to reach more Medical Affairs departments across North America and Europe to quicken adoption and improve outcomes of AI and NLP projects in the space.”
Lexalytics has built AI and NLP solutions for some of the world’s most prominent pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Avenir, AlternativesPharma, Biogen, Genentech, Sage Therapeutics, and more. Some of the recent and ongoing projects that Lexalytics has undertaken in Medical Affairs with its partners include:
- Medical Information Question-Answering System — By combining machine learning with keyword search, Lexalytics built a system for a leading Japanese biopharmaceutical company that reduces average call time without sacrificing the quality of responses. The system is essentially a search interface that uses an AI and NLP model underpinning it that processes a particular question against FAQs and other literature to deliver the best answers at the top. The system makes agents faster and more accurate, which reduces the need to elevate requests to an MP, significantly reducing costs.
- Content Aggregation — Lexalytics has designed and built disease-and condition-specific taxonomies that can apply across all of the content in a given organization. Typically this involves combining existing tags with new tags suggested by Lexalytics’ models into a single taxonomy for use throughout the organization. Being able to make an apples-to-apples comparison of Congress, field insights, research content, and everything else means that teams can perform detailed data analytics across all content for use in marketing, compliance, and other areas on which Medical Affairs concentrates.
- Field Insights & Engagement Tracking — Lexalytics has built a system combining NLP tools with custom taxonomies and advanced visualizations to help Medical Affairs teams gauge, in one place, what transpires during high-cost, high-value Medical Science Liaison customer interactions. The system objectively tracks key themes, sentiment, and perceptions recorded in brief, free-text interactions by MSLs following their discussions with HCPs, significantly increasing the MSL value and ensuring HCP feedback is better incorporated into medical strategies.
“We’ve just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible using AI in Medical Affairs to improve operations and outcomes, and pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare providers are eager to learn about the possibilities,” said Colin Baughman, founder and managing partner, True North Solutions. “I’ve consulted with Lexalytics on several past and current projects and am excited to expand our partnership to continue to drive innovation.”
“I’ve spent more than two decades driving strategy, product planning, development, patient program development, and more with Medical Affairs teams, and I know the critical role technology plays in ensuring success,” said Paul Riley, medical affairs director, Glasshouse Health. “Thanks to developments in AI and NLP, medical affairs teams can contribute to the business in ways they have never been able to before, as demonstrated by the projects delivered by Lexalytics.”
For more information about Lexalytics and its AI for Medical Affairs program, and to contact the company or its partners, please visit https://www.lexalytics.com/medical-affairs.
About True North Solutions
True North Solutions Inc. is a Medical Affairs Analytics & AI consulting practice based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. True North has worked across more than 25 conditions and over 100 projects ranging from use of AI for Medical Information, deep learning for advisory board insights, neural networks in social media monitoring, claims-based patient landscaping & access models, Medical Education unmet need prediction, scientific congress analytics using NLP, chatbots, and other programs. In addition, the True North team has led development of several digital health partnerships (including study design) in areas such as voice biomarkers, keystroke signatures, and wearables for disease identification and recurrence in conjunction with technology partners including Apple, Google, and Palantir. Colin and team believe Medical Affairs’ value can be greatly enhanced with modernized approaches to analysis, prediction, and visualization.
About Glasshouse Health
Glasshouse Health is a specialist Medical Affairs consulting practice based in Alderley Park, Macclesfield, UK. Glasshouse has 20 years of experience in Medical Affairs and has led teams in multiple therapy areas, developing scientific and clinical information and communicating it to the medical community and other stakeholders. Recent projects have included strategy development, medical product planning, brand plan review, investigator-initiated study management, real-world data collation and publication, patient support programme development, patient advisory boards, and digital health solution development. Glasshouse Health works with clients to deliver medical affairs excellence, supported by the right organisational capabilities and underpinned by innovative digital technology. Every day, Paul and team help clients leverage science and data, deliver improvements in healthcare, and create significant commercial value.