Disruptive technologies set to stabilise drug prices.

The data and analytics company GlobalData has released a report stating that artificial Intelligence, blockchain and big data could soon have an impact on the rising costs of drug development, as well as impacting on personalised treatments. According to the report, over 100 companies including Google, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft already apply artificial intelligence to healthcare.
Valentina Gburcik, GlobalData’s cardiovascular and metabolic disease director, said researchers are hoping to use the new technology to “generate more accurate hypotheses faster, making the drug discovery process less expensive and more effective. In addition, the database of electronic medical records and public health data can be analysed to identify hidden patterns that can lead to a quick identification of potential molecular targets for a disease. Blockchain could be a platform for sharing electronic health records between various health organisations in a secure way, which would further facilitate research and speed up the drug development process. Furthermore, there is a great potential for using this technology in pharmaceutical supply chain, medical billing and anonymised patient record transmission.”