Emerging trends in AI: COO Richard White participates in the FNLM workshop

04 May 2021

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Richard White, COO of Oxford PharmaGenesis, was a panellist at the recent virtual workshop on ‘Artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate discovery’, hosted by the Friends of the National Library of Medicine (FNLM) and sponsored by Oxford PharmaGenesis. He discussed emerging trends in the use of AI by the pharmaceutical industry, with a focus on how medical communications professionals can adapt to support the increasing need for AI-based approaches in medicine.

On 21 April 2021, the FNLM hosted a virtual workshop on ‘AI to accelerate discovery’, which focused on exploring the ways that AI can be applied to advance biomedical research and improve responsiveness to existing and emerging public health needs. Around 120 attendees took part in the workshop, including research leaders and principal investigators from the USA and beyond.

Moderated by George Lundberg (Editor in Chief, Cancer Commons), the workshop comprised a plenary presentation on ‘AI for greater productivity in research’ by Oren Etzioni (CEO, Allen Institute for AI) and two panel sessions: ‘Emerging trends in the use of AI’ and ‘AI tools and their applications’. Richard took part in the first panel session, moderated by Bo Saxberg (President, DDO Strategic Services), alongside Razelle Kurzrock (Chief Medical Officer, WIN Consortium for Precision Medicine).

Richard discussed the importance of creating ‘explainable AI’ to overcome the issue of AI remaining a ‘black box’ and how there is a significant role for medical communications professionals in helping to achieve clarity and build trust in AI among researchers, healthcare professionals and patients.

AI will not replace clinicians and researchers – but clinicians and researchers who use AI will replace those who do not”

Richard White, COO of Oxford PharmaGenesis

With this aim, Oxford PharmaGenesis has recently established an Informatics and Data Science team to support its clients in navigating this dynamic and complex field. The unique combination of data analytics and communications expertise within the team enables us to support clients in harnessing the power of data for more informed decision-making through the application of advanced analytics and data visualization.

Click below to watch Richard’s presentation, and contact us to learn more about how our Informatics and Data Science team can support you.