Cognitive Search Supports Life Sciences Innovation

When life sciences companies develop new drug therapies or biomedical interventions, what typically attracts the most attention is news about the success or failure of clinical trials. But a lot of work goes on behind the scenes before these efforts ever reach the clinical trial stage. In fact, as life sciences companies decide what promising therapies should receive development resources, it’s often rigorous fact finding and research that determines a go or no-go decision.

Cognitive Search Boosts Drug Discovery Efforts 

Scientists engaged in drug discovery efforts need access to internal and external research databases. They need to search ordinary file shares. And they want to find out what might be useful in electronic lab notebooks or laboratory information systems. That’s a lot of information, in different forms and locations.

Cognitive search solutions can make any relevant source of information accessible through a single interface. With cognitive search, a researcher could start with a complete or partial chemical structure or a DNA snippet and the results would return — in order of relevance — to an intranet web page. And cognitive search makes this possible without migrating data or creating one-off data marts, which quickly become data silos.

Fewer than 50 percent of employees can search across content silos.
– Findwise: Enterprise Search and Findability Survey

Of course, with such consolidated access to diverse data sources, security becomes a concern. Cognitive search solutions also automatically enforce the individual security protocols of the data sources. That means procedures in place to protect personally identifiable information (PII) and other types of regulated data will remain effective. 

Digital Transformation a Priority in the Life Sciences

Few industries have more to gain from digital transformation than life sciences companies. Although the pursuit of clinical innovation drives these companies, that drive doesn’t always translate to the IT side of the house.

But the healthcare ecosystem is changing rapidly as fresh players enter the market and often collaborate across traditional boundaries. To stay relevant, life sciences organizations must recognize the role AI technologies can play in the pursuit of life saving therapies. Cognitive search is one such technology.

To learn more about cognitive search for life sciences, check out our 5-minute Guide.