Diana Farah

DUBAI: Christophe Weber, President and CEO of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, said on Wednesday that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will allow the global healthcare systems to “massively transform.”

During a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel, Weber said: “AI allows us to be much more efficient. At [Takeda Pharmaceuticals] we can gain overall 30 percent efficiency in a few years, not only in research and development, but also in manufacturing.”

The CEO added that AI will allow the healthcare industry to explore news means that they have never looked into before.

“We think that it will allow us to accelerate the development of new medicines. So instead of taking 10 to 15 years, perhaps we’ll do it faster,” Weber told the audience at WEF. “It will allow us to be more targeted, and to make sure that the patient is the one benefiting from the medicines. We are still today, sometimes not so well targeted with the way we develop medicines.”

Weber explained that with the new technology, Takeda’s failure rate will substantially decline, and it would transform the company’s productivity.

Other speakers at the session included Gianrico Farrugia, President and CEO of Mayo Clinic, Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information Communication Technology and Innovation, Revanth Reddy Anumula, Telangana’s Chief Minister, Stella Kyriakides, Europe’s Commissioner for Health and Food Safety and host Sara Kehaulani Goo, Editor-in-Chief of Axios.

The session focused on digital transformation and AI and its ability to potentially revolutionize access to quality healthcare by empowering doctors, detecting diseases and sparking drug discoveries.

Weber also touched on the topic of data privacy and ownership in the healthcare sector.

“Data is an extremely sensitive topic. The concept of data privacy is very, very important. So you need to establish transparency,” he said.

He continued: “In many countries, there is still a relative unclarity, but that ownership and when you ask patients about that data, they always feel that they own that data, meaning that this is their ownership. When, in reality, in many countries, it’s not the case. The data is owned by other parties.”

Weber said that the clarity in the future will help “recreate so much value for society’s multiple players.”