Two developments reported in Fierce Healthcare's Weekly Rundown point to how quickly artificial intelligence is moving from the margins of healthcare into its core operations.
According to Fierce Healthcare, Novo Nordisk — the Danish pharmaceutical giant — has partnered with H1 on AI-driven clinical development. Clinical development is the long, expensive process of designing and running the human trials that determine whether a drug reaches patients. It routinely takes years and consumes a large share of a drug maker's budget, which is why pharmaceutical companies have been eager to apply AI to pieces of it.
The same rundown reports that Hers, the women's telehealth brand, has rolled out a new AI-native app. "AI-native" is the industry's term for software built around AI models from the ground up, rather than a conventional app with AI features bolted on afterward.
The source item is a weekly roundup headline, so the specifics are limited: it does not detail the financial terms of the Novo Nordisk–H1 arrangement, which parts of the trial process the collaboration will target, or what the Hers app actually does for users. Those details would matter a great deal in judging how substantive either move is.
What is clear is the direction of travel. A major drug maker is putting AI to work on trials, and a consumer health company is rebuilding its product around the technology.
It matters because clinical trials and patient-facing apps are the two ends of the pipeline that decides which treatments exist and how people get them — and both are now being redesigned around AI.