Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping industries across the globe — and life sciences is no exception. As the pace of innovation accelerates, the potential for AI to enhance drug discovery, streamline study management, and transform regulatory submissions is becoming clearer by the day. In this conversation, Mike Thurogood, VP of Global Marketing at Instem, sits down with Louis Brook, Instem’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), to explore how AI is impacting life sciences R&D and how Instem is positioning itself – and our clients – to thrive in this evolving landscape.
AI is transforming many industries, including life sciences. How do you see AI shaping the future of life sciences research and regulatory submissions, and what role will Instem play in this evolution?
AI is certainly playing a disruptive role across many industries, and the life sciences sector is no different. Regardless of whether an organisation’s current AI usage is limited to internal use-cases or exploited throughout their products already, we all need to be prepared for the new opportunities and challenges this technology presents.
Instem’s products and services serve a large portion of the research & development lifecycle, and AI will undoubtedly create opportunities in each area. In work focused on in silico research and data-driven insights, there are obvious opportunities for generative AI solutions to capitalise on the masses of research data available to us to curate high quality assessments at speeds we haven’t seen previously.
In study management the opportunity for more real-time and predicted insight into subject behaviours and abnormalities could be features that improve efficacy. We are likely to see basic usability enhancements to make everything from trial design to laboratory working easier as generative solutions and large language models drive more conversational interactions and automation.
Similarly, in preparation of regulatory materials, time and effort spent curating documents could be impacted if AI can be exploited to enforce the standards and consistency needed to produce high quality submissions, reducing the time needed to seek approval following a successful study.
Here at Instem, we’re always looking at ways we can innovate to help our customers accelerate their research and we recognise AI as an enabler that many of our customers will want to see the benefits of too.
Our clients are increasingly exploring AI to accelerate drug discovery and streamline regulatory processes. How is Instem ensuring that our AI-driven solutions evolve in step with their needs?
It’s clear that AI analysis can play a great role in the area of drug discovery, and as technology increases the speed at which potential products can be identified, we need to make sure that the rest of the R&D continuum can move at pace too.
Instem has a long history to maximising the potential of technology solutions to accelerate both pre-clinical and clinical research and, as such, generative AI already plays a role in how we deliver some of our service products today.
Our teams make use of innovative products to help deliver our SaaS services too. Assistive technology helps our teams build and enhance our software, whilst solutions embedding machine learning and predictive intelligence are used to keep our SaaS services operational and optimised.
In our products, we’re currently looking at areas that will drive most value for our customers. We prioritise the feedback we receive from users, and it’s clear that defining studies and generation of reports are tasks that – despite being highly specific to each user – would benefit from intelligent assistance.
There’s a lot of discussion around AI ethics and data security. How is Instem ensuring responsible AI adoption while maintaining compliance and safety?
For me, this point is key. AI is a new use of technology, quickly becoming as revolutionary as the smartphone or the internet itself. And like any other technology breakthrough, new risks are introduced which must be considered carefully. What is different in the case of AI, however, is the sheer speed at which the technology is now evolving and improving with adoption risk compounded by cyber threat landscape we all now live in.
At Instem we remain highly cautious of the regulatory environment our customers operate in, as well as the consequences of errors and inaccuracies that could arise through the over-reliance upon AI. Our policies aim to ensure that any proposed AI use-case undergoes thorough architectural, security and ethical assessment with concepts such as explainability, reliability and monitoring being key points for discussion.
Similarly, we are very alert to the general risks to data confidentiality and integrity and take great care in how we manage our data and that in our SaaS solutions with a comprehensive set of controls in place to secure our environments and ensure our 3rd parties are well suited to our needs and continue to be used appropriately.
Looking ahead, what are the most exciting AI-driven innovations we can expect in our sector, and how will they help our clients work more efficiently and make better decisions?
In the near term, I expect early phase drug discovery to benefit significantly from the ability to easily augment large processing power to the existing datasets that exist. Large organisations have been using machine learning models here for some time, but AI solutions provide an easier and more accessible means to extrapolate new insights from that data to identify new products, new applications or existing products, or to rule out unviable products quicker than ever before.
Similarly, I expect over time other phases of drug development to benefit from predictive AI capability and rapid assessment against historical trends allowing for earlier availability of valuable insights during pre-clinical and clinical trials. Advancements in conversational AI and computer vision could create new opportunities in laboratory and animal management environments as new methods for data ingestion could streamline how specialists in these settings interact with systems – form free flowing speech synthesis to AI-powered spectacles to take readings.
Statistical users are likely to see AI offerings already being made available to them, promising easier ways of solving for complex analytical queries through description rather than code. And this trend of describing a problem statement and desired outcome instead of hand crafting a solution will continue to spread from day-to-day productivity applications to most technology solutions.
The AI opportunity is significant and Instem will continue to follow its mission to help our customers discover, accelerate, and advance key R&D programs through safe, secure and responsible technology innovation.
Thank you for your time, Louis!
As this conversation illustrates, AI offers tremendous potential to accelerate innovation across the R&D lifecycle – from earlier insights in drug discovery to more efficient regulatory submissions. At Instem, we’re committed to delivering safe, secure, and responsible AI-driven solutions that meet the real-world needs of our customers. By staying grounded in science, guided by our clients, and focused on innovation, we aim to ensure our platforms continue to help researchers discover, accelerate, and advance life-changing programs with confidence.
