Since early 2023, ChatGPT has remained a hot topic, reflecting the huge impact and changes brought by AI. Many friends in the life sciences industry have asked us what AIGC can do in life sciences.
As everyone knows, traditional research is both the entry ticket and the golden key for life sciences companies' market strategy. How can this key turn more smoothly? The answer is big data plus AI. This is the story of MeDomino and a major US pharmaceutical company. As long-term partners, we worked together again on a hematology project and unexpectedly sparked new patient insight.
01 Big Data Appears: Data Collection
Traditional Research vs. Big Data
Traditional research involves selecting target audiences, in-depth interviews, quantitative research, data processing, and final reports. The process is long, costly, and limited in scope. When facing patient samples that are highly diverse and widely distributed, it often struggles to cover enough ground.
Big data, as a forward direction and trend in healthcare, can quickly generate large amounts of data in a short time. Based on online physician-patient data and behavior, it makes up for coverage limitations. In this project, for example, we collected more than 20,000 complete and valid records, a breadth that previous research could hardly imagine.
02 AI Appears: Data Mining
Deep Depth vs. Broad Scope
In traditional patient research, the advantage of in-depth interviews is flexibility. They can keep digging and generate many insights. Their disadvantage is that they cannot be replicated at scale. They have depth but lack breadth, making it hard to answer representative questions.
For many companies, tens of thousands of records are a sweet burden. They fear having no data, but once there is a lot of data, processing it becomes difficult.
MeDomino used AI to break down 20,000 collected records into more than one million effective analyzable data points, fully understanding patient information, needs, treatment status, and diagnosis and treatment paths within the data. Through multilevel deep mining, MeDomino built a bridge of communication between the manufacturer and patients, helping patients deliver their needs to the manufacturer and helping the manufacturer hear more patient voices at a broader scale: who patients are, where they are, how they seek care and move through treatment, what drugs they use, and what feedback they have.
Similarly, if you want to know what physicians think and how to communicate with patients, we can help you understand that more comprehensively and in greater detail.
03 Consultants Appear: Deeper Insight
Patients Are Actually the Key to Solving Strategic Choices
The patient journey lifts the veil on patient research. Online big data can help you understand patient flow in a way closest to real conditions, showing in steps, by region, by institution level, and across multiple dimensions where your patients are and where to find patients who may belong to you. It helps you understand how they arrive and how they leave.
From real medication use and feedback, you may find that organic advocates have new key messages, and you may even discover feedback that overturns your expectations. This may become the entry point for your next market strategy.
As for the question we are often asked, whether AI plus big data will overturn traditional cognition and research methods, our practice shows that for now, the relationship is that we need all of them.
Take patient insight as an example. Traditional research can provide deep insight, while big data plus AI can conduct a census-like scan. Especially for relatively special cases, MeDomino can help you search them out. Children choose one; adults want all. Bring the information abandoned in the corners into the sunlight. Somehow, that is exactly the insight everyone needs.
