TLDR: Deloitte is championing the integration of AI agents across the pharmaceutical value chain, from enhancing patient services with intelligent, autonomous solutions to revolutionizing clinical trials through advanced automation and data analysis. New offerings like the Agentic Patient Services suite, built on Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud, aim to personalize patient care and significantly reduce manual processes. Concurrently, Generative AI is poised to accelerate drug development by optimizing trial design, improving patient engagement, and streamlining regulatory submissions, promising faster timelines and better outcomes.
Deloitte is at the forefront of advocating for the pervasive integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents within the pharmaceutical industry, envisioning a future where these intelligent systems transform everything from patient interactions to the intricate processes of clinical trials. This strategic push is part of Deloitte’s broader $2 billion IndustryAdvantage™ investment, announced in March 2024, aimed at unlocking new value across various sectors.
One of the key innovations highlighted is Deloitte Digital’s ‘Agentic Patient Services suite,’ developed in collaboration with Salesforce. This new generation of autonomous AI agents, built on the Agentforce ecosystem, is specifically tailored for Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud. The suite is designed to deliver intelligent, personalized, and accurate patient experiences, with a primary goal of improving patient outcomes. These agents are purpose-built to streamline patient services workflows, bringing advanced automation and reasoning to each step of the patient’s journey. For instance, agents focused on ‘Intake and Onboarding’ are projected to reduce manual touchpoints by an impressive 50-70% by automating patient enrollment with minimal human intervention. Other agents within the suite address critical areas such as patient adherence and care management. This multi-agent approach signifies a paradigm shift where humans and AI agents will co-exist to enable seamless operations and highly personalized services. The ‘Agentic AI Intake Agent’ is slated for showcase at Dreamforce 2025 and will be available on AgentExchange in the fall of 2025.
Beyond patient services, Deloitte emphasizes AI’s profound impact on pharmaceutical research and development (R&D), particularly in clinical trials. Generative AI (GenAI) is identified as a ‘game-changer’ for accelerating clinical development and enhancing operational efficiencies. GenAI can automate repetitive tasks like document generation and regulatory submissions, thereby reducing overall cycle times and costs. Potential benefits include improving study startup velocity, fostering diversity in patient cohorts, and speeding up site creation.
In clinical trials, AI and GenAI are expected to streamline processes by optimizing trial design, enhancing patient recruitment and monitoring, and automating reporting. This leads to faster and more cost-effective drug development. Real-time monitoring of clinical trial data and the use of digital twins are also facilitated by GenAI, improving the quality of evidence generated during trials. Deloitte’s research indicates that AI-discovered drugs show significantly higher success rates in Phase I trials, with 21 out of 24 molecules completing trials successfully as of December 2023, representing an 80-90% success rate compared to historical industry averages of 40-65%.
Patient engagement and retention are also set to be revolutionized. GenAI can personalize outreach, identify key doctors and locations, and answer patient questions, which is crucial given that patient attrition can cost up to $20,000 per participant. By increasing study retention, GenAI can significantly cut costs. However, Deloitte also cautions against over-indexing on historical clinical data to avoid amplifying inherent biases and stresses the importance of trustworthy AI frameworks and governance.
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Looking ahead to 2025, Deloitte’s survey of 150 C-suite executives in the global life sciences sphere revealed that 60% are closely monitoring generative AI and digital advances, with a similar number planning to increase investments in GenAI. This suggests a move beyond initial pilot projects towards realizing scaled value from these technologies. The firm projects that AI, alongside quantum computing, will streamline drug development, generate drug performance insights, and automate reporting, ultimately leading to faster timelines and more equitable healthcare solutions by 2030.
