Novartis Seeks Hidden Cures in Machine Learning, AI

Novartis' Global Drug Development has completed the first phase of a digital transformation that has enabled it to better leverage one of its best assets -- data. Big companies may not be as fast moving as small ones, but they often have an asset that smaller, younger companies can never have -- years' worth of historical data. But even though they have that asset, are they really able to turn it into value? Can a scientist or marketing pro in any given company query their data for insights that add to the top or bottom lines? At pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis, the stakes are even higher. Give doctors access to the data they need and maybe, together, they can perform drug discovery faster. Maybe they can optimize drug trials to make them more efficient. Maybe, eventually, they can apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to their vast stores of data sets to surface and develop a new drug using just a computer.