As the life sciences industry progresses towards digital transformation, a pressing question grows ever more significant: can technology truly keep pace with clinical innovation and do so without losing its human touch?
In an era where physicians have instant access to vast digital resources and regulations limit direct interactions in several countries, traditional models of customer engagement in pharma have been disrupted beyond recognition.
This rapid evolution is compelling life sciences companies to think beyond the product itself. Axtria believes innovation is as much about shaping healthcare delivery as it is about creating new molecules.
“Being much more personalised, much more tailored, recognising that physicians are different, patients are different, and healthcare systems are different, that’s where innovation is heading,” Uday Bose, head of human pharma customer experience excellence and business steering at Boehringer Ingelheim, told AIM. “Often, we find the molecule itself isn’t the issue. The healthcare system needs to be reformed.”
He recalled launching a first-in-class product, only to discover that the healthcare system “wasn’t even equipped to see those patients, let alone diagnose or treat them”. Today, pharma and life sciences companies are being called upon to partner proactively with healthcare providers to shape the very ecosystems in which treatments are delivered.
Turning Information into Insight
The conversation around AI in healthcare often focuses on automation and scale. However, Axtria sees AI as a force multiplier for human expertise.
“The volume of information is overwhelming,” Bose explained. “It’s not about a lack of data, but a lack of actionable insights. That’s what we’ve been missing, and that’s where technology plays an incredibly important role.”
He added that medical advisors, often practising doctors or oncologists who moved into the industry to impact more patients, spend almost 50% of their time reviewing and approving content, cross-checking references and verifying materials.
Here, automation, auto-referencing and AI agents can shoulder such a burden. By doing so, they free up highly qualified professionals to focus on what truly matters: meaningful interactions that drive healthcare forward.
Addressing another key challenge, Manish Mittal, managing principal of Axtria, told AIM, “When it comes to onboarding patients, the key challenge is making sure it’s the right patient for the treatment. Identifying them accurately is a big hurdle—it’s not just a procedural or political exercise.”
Mittal explained that in some cases, it used to take up to eight years to find the right patient group. Platforms like SalesIQ are helping cut that drastically. What used to take seven days now happens almost instantly.
To identify patients, there is a convergence of data across multiple healthcare layers, such as pharmacy data, hospital data and physician networks, to find those patients who can truly benefit from a treatment.
He mentioned that for Axtria, the goal isn’t to replace human intelligence but to amplify it. The company’s approach is rooted in partnership between humans and machines, between pharma companies and healthcare systems, between innovation and empathy.
Turning Data into Actionable Insight
The explosion of digital information has given rise to a new challenge: data overload without insight.
“It’s not a lack of data per se, but a lack of actionable insights, that’s what we’re missing,” Bose explained. “The richness you can derive from good-quality data is incredible, but what we need are engines that can translate that data into something simple, specific, and precise.”
AI is now helping medical advisors, often former clinicians, reclaim valuable time.
Bose added that medical advisors were spending nearly 50% of their time just reviewing and approving materials—checking references, validating content.
That’s not a good use of their expertise. Automation and AI agents can transform that, freeing them to focus on advancing healthcare.
The Future of GenAI in Life Sciences
AI isn’t new to Axtria; it’s part of the company’s DNA, Mittal pointed out. The focus is on contextual intelligence rather than blind automation.
“AI is not new. What matters is how we use it responsibly,” he explained. “With cloud and computational advances, data became abundant. But the real challenge is creating a semantic layer of knowledge—linking information meaningfully so that insights actually improve patient outcomes.”
He added that without context, one can receive all kinds of answers that make decision-making harder, especially when lives are at stake. That’s why Axtria’s focus is on bringing semantics and knowledge together—to make every AI-powered decision truly human-informed.
For Axtria’s leadership, staying close to the patient experience is non-negotiable.
“We need to make the experience of managing health as simple as choosing a video to watch. That’s how we bridge the gap between technology and human behaviour,” Bose added.
“It’s important to meet customers, observe their workflows and see how our platforms impact real patients. When you see that connection firsthand, it changes how you build solutions,” Mittal echoed the sentiment.
The post Axtria’s Bet on Human-Centric AI in Healthcare appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.
