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Established in 1849 in New York, Pfizer, a major global player in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, has been collaborating with AWS to harness the vast capabilities of AI. In the past year and a half, Pfizer introduced approximately 19 medical products, including vaccines, with digital data and AI contributing to the rapid market entry of 13 of these.
A pivotal element in Pfizer’s achievements is its alliance with AWS, initiated in 2019 with the development of a dedicated scientific data cloud (SDC). “AWS cloud allows scientists to rapidly access historical molecule and compound data, a process that previously took weeks or months,” said Lidia Fonseca, chief digital and technology officer at Pfizer, at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas.
This enhancement in data accessibility and analysis has accelerated the company’s research and development, particularly in computational research and AI algorithms that assist in identifying and designing promising new molecules.
The partnership took a significant leap forward in 2021 when Pfizer undertook a massive digital transformation. The company shifted a substantial portion of its coding and server infrastructure to the AWS cloud. This transition involved moving 1,000 applications and 8,000 servers in just 42 weeks, marking one of the fastest migrations for a company of Pfizer’s size.
This shift resulted in an annual savings of $37 million and significantly reduced the health-tech giant’s carbon footprint, eliminating approximately 4,700 tons of CO₂ emissions annually. This transition to the AWS cloud was a cost-saving measure and a strategic move that empowered the company to innovate with greater speed and scale.
Fighting COVID-19 with AWS
“The value of our partnership became particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic as AWS’s support was instrumental in various aspects of the vaccine’s development, from manufacturing to clinical trials,” added Fonseca.
When they needed to rapidly scale up computing capacity for intensive data analysis or expedite the submission of crucial data to regulatory bodies, AWS provided the necessary resources. This collaboration was pivotal in enabling the latter to develop and obtain FDA emergency use authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine in a record 269 days, something that typically taking 8 to 10 years.
AWS swiftly increased high-performance computing resources for Pfizer, offering a significant expansion in cloud computing capacity, enabling them to perform detailed analyses crucial for vaccine development. Additionally, when fast data submission for FDA approval was required, AWS provided immediate extra computing power, facilitating Pfizer’s timely scientific progress.
Pfizer and AWS’s ongoing collaboration, utilising AI for proactive supply chain management, was vital during events like Hurricane Ian, to maintain essential medicine and vaccine distribution. Before the pandemic, they produced 220 million vaccine doses annually, which increased to 4 billion COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty doses in 2022, a significant jump attributed to this technological partnership.
Leveraging Generative AI for Cancer Treatment
Pfizer is progressively leveraging generative AI in various domains, with a particular focus on using AWS’s Bedrock and Sagemaker. This collaboration is expected to yield substantial annual cost savings, estimated between $760 million and $4 billion. Specifically, the company is exploring 17 use cases, with some priority areas, potentially saving $750 million to $1 billion each year.
The company has integrated its internal generative AI platform, VOX, with AWS’s cloud services and machine learning models for them to prototype and explore use cases rapidly in research and development, manufacturing, marketing, and more.
Notably, VOX allows for secure innovation with access to large language models, including Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker. It is being used to create first drafts of patent applications and generate medical and scientific content, significantly speeding up the process and enabling Pfizer to deliver breakthroughs to patients faster.
However, their use of AI extends beyond cost savings and operational efficiency. In the realm of oncology, for example, AI is being used to streamline and accelerate the identification of new treatment targets. This process, which is mainly manual and time-consuming, is being transformed by AI’s ability to collate and analyse relevant data and scientific content rapidly.
Fonseca added that the use of generative AI in manufacturing is also yielding significant improvements, enhancing process optimisation and real-time anomaly detection, which are crucial for maintaining quality and efficiency in pharmaceutical production.
Pfizer is also set to acquire leading biotech firm Seagen, which specialises in innovative cancer treatments. “We aspire to replicate the success we achieved with our COVID response for cancer treatment. Our collaboration with AWS plays a critical role in maintaining this momentum, driving our goal to positively impact a million lives every year, and not only in times of a pandemic,” Fonseca concluded.
AWS’s Big Bets on Healthcare
Besides Pfizer, AWS is also collaborating with other prominent healthcare and pharmaceutical companies like Amgen, Moderna, BioNTech, Gilead, and Johnson & Johnson to enhance drug discovery, manufacturing, and AI integration in healthcare.
AWS’s role extends to data management, partnering with Dedalus, Change Healthcare, and Visage Imaging for data migration and with CrowdStrike and TrendMicro for data protection. They also work with GE Healthcare and Infor on data unification and with DataBricks and Philips in innovating AI and machine learning applications in healthcare.
Additional partnerships with 3M, Hyland Software, NextGen, and Pariveda focus on improving EHR, virtual care, interoperability, and population health, showcasing AWS’s dedication to advancing healthcare technology.
