Which role does Saama play in the life sciences industry and how did your collaboration with Pfizer play out during the pandemic?
We specialize in intelligent solutions for clinical trials, which will be revolutionary in conducting and analyzing those trials. More specifically, we use artificial intelligence (AI), which has been proven to accelerate clinical trial timelines considerably. We have seen this hypothesis at work during the pandemic, as getting vaccines out as fast as possible made the difference between life and death, especially for essential workers.
Our relationship with Pfizer predated the pandemic. It used our services in other projects. When Pfizer faced the challenge of bringing a COVID-19 vaccine to market quickly,” it collaborated with Saama to use our AI solution that accelerated clinical trial data review.
Our Smart Data Quality (SDQ) product automated the cleaning and review of 1.2 million data points, saving nearly 20,000 hours of manual work, a 40% time savings. We condensed 30 days of work into under 24 hours.
How would you describe the clinical trials environment today and what are the main shortcomings in this sector?
Due to highly regulated frameworks, the pharma industry is rightly conservative. Ensuring the safety of the patients requires control and diligence, which can impact speed.
When it comes to technology, the adoption of SaaS-based solutions seems slower than other industries. However, this industry needs solutions that offer flexibility over one-size-fits-all. It must have measurable improvements over existing architectures. It must be error proof.
Access to numerous data sources and data aggregation are among the most critical challenges in the industry. Saama has been able to aggregate all that data into a single application. In doing so, we help trials run more efficiently, and with better data quality, accelerating the delivery of treatments to patients.
In which way will the Inflation Reduction Act impact the industry, especially regarding the course of innovation?
The Inflation Reduction Act will impact therapy area focus and pricing decisions as companies will look for ways to reduce research and development and commercialization costs.
Data management will become more critical as clinical trials may need to generate new data for approval and pricing support. Machine learning (ML) solutions will be helpful in the early identification of new label indications and AI will bring efficiency in clinical trial data management, thus helping pharma companies accomplish their objectives. All in all, using new technologies will help balance profitability and innovation in this new market environment.
To what extent did the pandemic change the industry's perception of the general public and what role did it have in promoting new technologies?
Some of the positive outcomes of the pandemic include increased transparency, a heightened desire to collaborate, and an improved sense of urgency. Regulatory and political sides have become more participative and are looking into feasible ways to help companies market their drugs.
The pandemic also proved that speed is possible. Public expectation is that other therapies can and will be available to patients sooner. Therefore, many pharma companies are considering ways to invest in innovative technologies that will accelerate their research and development processes. In the years to come, we will see a lot more usage of technology to bring scalability, push innovation, reduce testing on animals, and more. AI will increase accuracy across all development phases.
What are the main objectives you would like to achieve at Saama in the next five years, as your fifth tenure as CEO in the life sciences space?
I have three key objectives: To bring change to people through technology, to expand our capabilities in order to accelerate clinical trials, and to launch the new solutions in our pipeline.
In addition, we will champion and advocate for the adoption of AI and ML solutions to accelerate clinical trials. These technologies have the power to transform human health. Personal stories are pivotal in advancing science and technology because they fuel the ambition to discover new cures and prompt us to reimagine health care.
