Biting the data bullet at GlaxoSmithKline

GSK’s size undoubtedly makes it a big ship to turn when integrating new tools like machine learning. What this case study shows is that the focus of any organisation today – both large and small, must be on positioning their infrastructure and their personnel in such a way that new trends can be utilised quickly to retain competitive advantage.

Here the author of The AI Advantage, Thomas H. Davenport, examines how GlaxoSmithKline R&D successfully transformed their data allowing them to utilise AI and lay the foundation for creating better drugs, quicker.

Many large organizations eventually realize that they don’t have the data environments they need to succeed with broad-scale AI to work. For GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Research and Development (R&D) organization, that time was in early 2015. The president (at that time) of the unit Patrick Vallance and his senior colleagues deliberated on whether their data environment was of sufficient quality and integration to use tools like machine learning to help develop new drugs…