Key Takeaways
- England’s NICE can see a role for artificial intelligence in the decision-making process during health technology assessments of medicines.
- The institute is engaging with industry to develop its AI strategy, and wants to explore how this technology could help “reimagine” the HTA process.
- AI and machine learning could help companies to repurpose drugs for use in rare diseases.
While it is unlikely that England’s health technology assessment (HTA) body, NICE, will ever have “artificial intelligence committees,” there is the potential for AI to be “present in the deliberation,” Pall Jonsson, NICE program director for data and real-world evidence (RWE) said at the NICE annual conference last week.
“[AI] can help people look at different scenarios, look at different patient populations. So instead of having to say ‘we don’t know the answer to that, sorry, you have to come back in six months’ time,’ the AI could potentially help us look at that evidence reimagined for that particular question,” he said at the event on 27 March.
Jonsson described this as a “really exciting opportunity” for NICE to use AI, and said that the HTA body was “trying to open [its] mind,” around the use of AI beyond just using it for productivity increases.
“One thing I think we should be really careful about is not to look at AI as a means to incrementally speed up processes. We need to start completely clean with a new slate and think ‘let’s bring out the crystal ball and start to look at what a new HTA process could look like with the help of AI’.”
Jonsson said: “We’re talking to key opinion leaders, we’re talking to experts in industry, academia, pharma and others to bring that sort of knowledge in and develop our strategy around how we respond and adapt to AI.”
He explained that NICE was using an initiative known as the HTA Innovation Laboratory (HTA Lab) to “reimagine what HTA looks like with AI” and “take in external expertise.”
For example, some pharmaceutical companies are using AI to “create network meta analysis [models] so they can look at comparative effectiveness of medicines much quicker than they used to,” Jonsson stated.
The HTA Lab, launched in 2023, allows NICE to test new methods and processes for assessing innovative medicines and medtech products in an experimental environment. It was discussed by other speakers at the NICE conference, and the institute said it is looking for industry partners across all HTA Lab projects.
Jonsson said that NICE wants to “get more clarity around when stakeholders are using or deploying AI,” because companies “aren’t always telling us when this is happening.”
AI For Drug Repurposing
Drug repurposing, particularly for patients with rare diseases, is one way that AI can be used by pharmaceutical companies, Jonsson said.
“With all these existing compounds, there may be potential combinations of therapies already out there that could benefit patients [with rare diseases],” he said.
“We can use machine learning to help us scan some of those potential targets in a different indication. That’s really exciting,” Jonsson added.
NICE is also aware of companies using AI to develop their clinical dossiers for regulatory and HTA purposes, as well as to perform systematic literature reviews, to retrieve data and in clinical trials, he said.
Jonsson emphasized the importance of NICE “looking at what’s happening” in industry rather than just focusing on its own internal AI use, given that AI “touches almost every part of the ecosystem.”
