Ayodeji Alaran, the founder and CEO of PBR Life Sciences, has a background as a trained pharmacist and has worked with prominent global pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer across Africa and Asia. Through his experience, he identified a critical issue within the industry – the lack of reliable data leading to significant losses for pharmaceutical companies due to expired inventory.
This realization sparked the creation of PBR Life Sciences in 2016. Alaran understood that although healthcare data was available, the challenge lay in cleaning and analyzing it to meet global standards. To address this, he began developing AI models from scratch, with a focus on data standardization.
As part of the third cohort of the Google for Startups’ Growth Academy: AI for Health program, Alaran reflects on the transformative impact of training and building AI models for PBR Life Sciences. Initially, cleaning a dataset would take months, but with their proprietary AI models, it now only takes minutes. The company now leverages AI for data standardization to meet WHO requirements, with a team of experts including doctors, pharmacists, and scientists ensuring the accuracy and relevance of their work.
While most of PBR Life Sciences’ AI deployment has been in the back office for operational excellence, their participation in the Google for Startups program has shifted their focus to unlocking greater value for customers and patients. They are exploring the integration of their proprietary data with Google’s AI to visualize disease prevalence, identify supply gaps, and improve pricing management.
PBR Life Sciences recognizes the challenges faced by emerging markets in accessing comprehensive healthcare data and aims to address this by expanding their presence in countries like Ghana and Kenya. Their goal is to be operational in 20 countries over the next decade, ensuring these markets are represented in drug discovery, pricing, and the adoption of new technologies.
In June, the company is set to launch three new AI-powered products, including the Health Data Lab, which will contain the largest anonymized dataset of Black patients globally to enhance clinical research. Through AI-driven growth and expansion into emerging markets, PBR Life Sciences is poised to make a significant impact in the healthcare industry.
