The impact of using artificial intelligence in pharmaceutical companies

Abstract EN

Pharmaceutical companies generate profits, predominantly, through patented medication.

pharmaceutical companies justify the high costs of medication by offsetting the costs, of tested and failed clinical trials, onto medicines that make it on the market.

this paper links the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI), pharmaceutical companies and the role that ai will play in increasing access to medicines by decreasing costs of medicines.

this article also considers the hurdles that pharmaceutical companies will face, such as ownership and patentability of drugs, as a result of using ai in drug discoveries.this paper concludes and recommends a change in legislation and an amendment of the trade related aspect of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) to allow for technological advancements such as ai to become recognised as inventors and for ai generated inventions to be patentable in order increase access to affordable medicines as well as utilising ai in pharmaceutical companies to enhance the method of new drug discovery.

the methodology utilised in this paper is a hybrid approach between doctrinal legal research methodology and comparative analysis.