In a recent interview with Fierce Biotech’s Chris Hayden, Fortrea’s Chief Technology and Data Officer Alaric Jackson discussed the growing role of AI in clinical trials.
Jackson described how AI is moving beyond its initial focus on the discovery process and is now being incorporated across the entire lifecycle of clinical trials. This includes everything from identifying assets and validating them, to protocol design, trial execution, closeout and safety reporting.
Fortrea is embedding AI and machine learning at every stage, Jackson said, to improve employee productivity and to enhance trial planning, site selection and monitoring. He also emphasized Fortrea’s focus on “augmented intelligence,” using AI to provide the right data at the right time to improve decision-making.
Jackson highlighted the potential of AI to improve patient outcomes, citing a Swedish study on mammograms where AI, combined with a radiologist, improved cancer detection accuracy. He also discussed the importance of using AI to get access to more diverse patient populations in clinical trials.
Ultimately, Jackson said, Fortrea’s goal is to use technology to get better medicines to more patients more rapidly, while simplifying the experience for patients, sponsors and sites.
Chris Hayden: Welcome, everyone. Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Chris Hayden. I’m a producer here at Fierce Biotech. And today I’m joined by Alaric Jackson. He’s the chief technology and data officer at Fortrea.
Alaric, would you like to take a few minutes to introduce yourself?
Alaric Jackson: Hey, Chris. Absolutely. So, yeah. So I lead technology and data here at Fortrea. So I’m responsible for developing our technology strategy and then implementing it.
Chris Hayden: Excellent. Perfect. Well, that’s a perfect position for our conversation today.
Alaric Jackson: Absolutely.
Chris Hayden: So let’s just jump in. We only have five questions today. So let’s just jump in with the first one, and it’s a big one. So, just curious as to what role does AI play in clinical trials?
Alaric Jackson: Yeah. So it’s a great question, Chris. And the quick answer is it’s increasing. If you think about where AIML was a few years ago, it was very much focused to the discovery process, so the early phase of R&D, but in more recent times it’s moving through the whole lifecycle. So firstly, identifying assets, genetically validating them, and then helping with protocol design, development programs, trial execution, trial closeout, and then safety reporting. So it’s kind of infusing itself across every stage of the lifecycle with major impacts, and the impact varying by phase at this point in time.
Chris Hayden: Yeah, that’s interesting. You hear about it in every facet of healthcare, pharma, biotech, everything nowadays. So it’s really, yeah. And it’s interesting that, what you say, it is growing. Exactly.
Now, how is Fortrea incorporating these technologies, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, to improve productivity in clinical trials?
Alaric Jackson: Yeah. So Chris, I’d say what we’re trying to do is we’re looking to embed AIML and automation at every stage. So if you look at the basic elements, and using Co-pilot to improve employee productivity, whether it be helping with meeting minutes, summarization, there’s value there, and it makes folks a lot more efficient. And folks are used to that in their domestic lives as well with the prevalence of technology. But also, we’re looking to move along the whole continuum. So looking to embed AIML in how we do trial planning, protocol design, site selection. So looking at which of the sites are best suited for our clinical trials and where the patient populations are.
Then, as we move forward, we’re also looking at embedding AI in how we do our monitoring. So more risk-based monitoring. So searching for predicting protocol deviations and stuff that even five years ago would seem to be completely science fiction. But that’s where we’re looking to embed AI at Fortrea.
Chris Hayden: And it’s interesting, the third question here, looking at healthcare. And I think in the past, healthcare has used machine learning and AI in the back end of things, the back of the house applications. But where should the healthcare industry today be using this technology overall, more than we do today?
Alaric Jackson: Yeah. So I mean, Chris, I mean, if I think about it, there’s some great proof points already with healthcare using AIML. There was a study I think in Sweden a couple of years ago about the impact of AI on mammograms and how you got a better outcome using a radiologist and AI versus using two radiologists. I think it was like a 4% increase in cancer detection or accuracy. So there’s amazing work that could be done at the diagnostic stage to improve patient outcomes and patient health, but also through the whole life cycle of looking to improve trial design, patient experience, and efficiency.
I mean, efficiency is a huge part of it. There’s a lot of focus on what we can do to manage costs, reduce costs, but philosophically there’s so much can be done to get more, if I think just on the clinical trials ecosystem. Getting access to more diverse patient populations in clinical trials is something that I think AIML can make a huge impact on, and one that I think is fantastic if we can focus on.
Chris Hayden: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it’s pretty clear just from our conversation already that Fortrea is doing things a little differently. But how is Fortrea thinking differently about the use of technology?
Alaric Jackson: So Fortrea is like we’ve got a great ecosystem of technology providers we work with. And again, if I think about the journey Fortrea has been on and some of the other companies, the technology’s improved massively in the last years. But what Fortrea’s approach to technology that we feel is different is we’re attacking the white spaces. We’re not looking to develop products where there are best-of-breed products already out there. We’re looking to attack areas where the products may not be fully formed, and we can then bring our domain expertise to bear in areas that are underserved.
Another key thing at Fortrea, and a way we feel differently, is there’s a lot of concerns around artificial intelligence; around jobs, what does it mean? And the way I position it is more of augmented intelligence. So what we’re doing is we’re improving the outcomes. We’re improving our people by giving them the right data at the right time to allow them to make the right decisions, and not have a view of a black box making a decision with no scientific rigor. Because one of the things AI is very good at is coming up with a good decision. What it’s not so good at is explaining the decision. And so that’s what we’re really passionate about is augmented intelligence so we can show the whole life cycle of why the decision’s being made, the rationale for it, fully auditable, that we can then work with our customers, regulators on.
Chris Hayden: Love it. Love it. That’s great. And that’s a great segue into our final question here. What do you find most exciting about where Fortrea is headed and how that work can benefit patients, sponsors, and sites?
Alaric Jackson: So one of the big things for us is getting better medicines to more patients rapidly. And I know that’s the vision of healthcare and the clinical trials, but Fortrea is very passionate about that and we’re looking at when we deploy technology, when we use technology. Historically, a lot of teams and organizations focused just on how does it impact the internal employee? Does it make Alaric a more productive employee? That’s not what we’re looking at. We’re focused at what can we do to improve the patient experience? So, simplifying informed consent. What can we do to reduce site burdens? We know sites are incredibly heavy-laden. They have a big technology burden at the moment with multiple vendors, multiple solutions. So what excites me is our approach to try and simplify the journey, whether it be all constituents of the ecosystem, and treat them equally as we move along.
Chris Hayden: I love it. That’s great. Simplify. It’s nice. I know, it’s great. I love it. Thank you for joining us today. I’m your host, Chris Hayden, and I’d like to thank Alaric Jackson for joining me today.
Alaric Jackson: Thanks so much, Chris.