Like all pharmaceutical companies, Bristol-Myers Squibb is required to conduct “post-market surveillance.” That is, once a drug is approved and being sold, the company needs to know if any patients are experiencing adverse reactions or unusual side effects that didn’t crop up during the clinical trials. It also needs to be on alert for signs that the medicine is being prescribed “off-label” (meaning for conditions for which it has not been formally approved by medical regulators) or that people are abusing the medicine in some way, maybe as a recreational drug. But while there are official channels for reporting adverse reactions, discovering off-label uses and abuse is much trickier. Recently Bristol-Myers Squibb decided to see if A.I. could help.
