Accurate and secure summarization and retrieval using BioRAG in life sciences

Co-authored by Gabriele Oliva, Head of Data & AI at BIP UK, Ankur Sinha, Head of Partner Solutions & GTM, Domino, & David Schulman, Director of Partner Marketing, Domino

In the life sciences and health sectors, managing and analyzing large volumes of clinical information efficiently and securely is critical for innovation and regulatory compliance. While GenAI is promising, traditional information management methods often fall short, leading to inefficiencies, increased costs, and potential risks to patient safety. Enter BioRAG (RAG - Retrieval Augmented Generation), an advanced AI solution in Domino’s AI Hub, designed to transform how clinical data is handled and utilized.

The need for BioRAG

Life sciences organizations face numerous challenges in managing clinical information , including:

• Data silos: Fragmented data across different systems hinder comprehensive analysis and decision-making.
• Regulatory compliance: Strict regulations require meticulous data management and traceability, often leading to cumbersome processes.
• Inefficiencies: Manual data retrieval and summarization slow down clinical trials, delaying drug development and patient treatments.
• Complex data structures: Managing complex and unstructured data is crucial for accurate decision-making across drug discovery, trials, and compliance.
• Cost pressures: High development and launch costs along with competitive pricing pressure life sciences organizations to find more efficient operational methods.

AI integration allows for innovative product design and unique solutions, advancing treatments, personalized medicine, and patient care. Generative AI, in particular, excels in rapid information retrieval and managing complex data. However, deploying these solutions requires robust infrastructure, scalability, and seamless system integration.

Generative AI solutions like BioRAG address these challenges by offering a robust, AI-driven solution that enhances information accessibility, accuracy, and compliance. BioRAG can streamline operations across the value chain, from accelerating research and development to optimizing supply chain processes and ensuring regulatory compliance, ultimately driving innovation and reducing costs.

Through Domino, BioRAG can be quickly piloted and scaled across the enterprise, overcoming the typical hurdles of productionizing AI solutions. This enables life sciences organizations to rapidly deploy and benefit from advanced AI capabilities, ensuring they stay competitive and innovative in a fast-evolving industry.

What is BioRAG?

BioRAG is a Retrieval Augmented Generation solution, developed by BIP Group, that leverages state-of-the-art AI and cloud technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical information management. The BioRAG solution template in Domino’s AI Hub, offering a pre-built template that can be customized to meet specific organizational requirements.

By integrating BioRAG into clinical trial workflows via Domino's AI Hub, life sciences organizations can achieve:

• Conversational agent: BioRAG includes an advanced conversational agent that interacts with users to facilitate seamless information retrieval and management, enhancing user experience and engagement.
• Advanced document retrieval: BioRAG retrieves and summarizes relevant information from vast clinical datasets in real-time, ensuring immediate access to critical data.
• Enhanced data summarization: BioRAG provides accurate and concise summaries of complex clinical documents, leveraging AI-driven contextual analysis to ensure relevant and precise information.
• Knowledge management: BioRAG enhances knowledge management by organizing and maintaining clinical information efficiently, supporting better decision-making and knowledge sharing within the organization.
• Use case governance: BioRAG’s scalable infrastructure supports seamless scaling from pilots to enterprise-wide deployment, effective governance of use cases, and cost optimization.
• Compliance and traceability: BioRAG ensures that all data interactions are traceable and compliant with industry regulations, facilitating smoother regulatory reviews and maintaining detailed audit trails for enhanced transparency.

Technical implementation of BioRAG

The integration of BioRAG within Domino's AI Hub involves several key components:

1. Secure integration via Azure cloud resources: BioRAG utilizes Azure cloud services for scalable and reliable data processing. This integration allows the system to handle large volumes of data efficiently, ensuring that all necessary computational resources are available on-demand.
2. AI-powered insights via LLM integration: Leveraging the power of OpenAI LLMs on Azure such as GPT-4 and GPT-4o, BioRAG provides high-quality responses and insights. The system retrieves and processes information from uploaded documents, generating concise and accurate summaries that are crucial for clinical decision-making.
3. Data and workflow orchestration via Domino’s platform: The platform supports the data science workflow by managing the setup and orchestration of data processing tasks, making it easier for data scientists to deploy and manage AI models.
4. Multi-language support for document handling: BioRAG supports multi-language document processing, enabling new-generation programmers to work in their preferred programming languages. This flexibility is essential for diverse clinical trial environments where documents may be in different languages.
5. Enhanced user interface via chatbot functionality: The BioRAG solution includes a user-friendly chatbot interface that allows clinical monitors to interact with the system easily. Users can ask specific questions, and the system retrieves the most relevant information from the document database, providing real-time answers.

Deployment and management of chatbot functionality:

• Deployment: The chatbot functionality of BioRAG is deployed within the Domino Enterprise AI Platform, leveraging its orchestration capabilities. The chatbot is connected to the Azure-hosted LLM and the document database, enabling real-time query processing and response generation.
• Management: The chatbot application can be managed through the Domino Enterprise AI Platform, which allows for easy updates and maintenance. The platform provides logging and monitoring tools to ensure that all interactions are traceable and compliant with regulatory requirements. Custom logging mechanisms have been implemented to facilitate auditability and ensure data integrity.
• Customization options: The chatbot can be configured to handle different types of queries based on the uploaded documents. Role-based access control ensures that only authorized users can access specific information, maintaining data security and privacy. Additionally, the chatbot interface can be tailored to meet the specific needs of clinical monitors, enhancing user experience and efficiency.

Benefits of using BioRAG

• Improved clinical trial efficiency: By automating the retrieval and summarization of clinical data, BioRAG significantly reduces the time required for clinical teams to access critical information, thereby accelerating the completion of the trial lifecycle.
• Enhanced patient safety: Real-time access to accurate information ensures that clinical decisions are based on the most current and comprehensive data available. This helps doctors and healthcare providers make informed decisions, improving patient outcomes and ensuring safer treatment protocols.
• Regulatory compliance: BioRAG facilitates access to and verification of regulatory requirements, significantly reducing the risk of non-compliance and associated penalties. This provides peace of mind for regulatory teams and ensures that patients receive treatments that meet stringent safety standards.
• Optimized manufacturing processes: By providing real-time insights into production data, BioRAG helps optimize manufacturing processes. This improves efficiency and reduces waste, ensuring that high-quality products are consistently available for patients and healthcare providers.
• Efficient procurement: By analyzing procurement data, BioRAG enables better decision-making in sourcing and purchasing, thereby reducing costs and ensuring the timely availability of necessary materials.
• Enhanced market access: By supporting market access strategies with comprehensive data on clinical outcomes and patient demographics, BioRAG helps tailor marketing efforts and improve patient engagement, thereby enhancing market penetration.

In-depth look: During a recent presentation, Domino’s RevX conference in London, Gabriele Oliva, Head of Data Analytics and AI at BIP, highlighted how BioRAG leverages Azure’s AI capabilities and Domino’s Enterprise AI Platform to streamline clinical trial processes. Gabriele explained that the BioRAG solution allows clinical monitors to quickly access and summarize information from clinical trial documents, such as protocols and investigator brochures. This real-time access to accurate information significantly reduces the back-and-forth communication with sponsors, leading to faster decision-making and improved patient safety.

Gabriele emphasized the importance of integrating new technology within existing regulatory frameworks, noting that BioRAG’s design ensures compliance with industry standards while enabling innovation. The solution's ability to provide traceable and auditable data interactions was particularly highlighted as a key advantage in highly regulated environments like life sciences.

Conclusion

The BioRAG solution, integrated within Domino’s AI Hub, represents a significant advancement in the way clinical data is managed and utilized in the life sciences sector. By addressing key challenges and providing robust AI-driven capabilities, BioRAG enables organizations to drive innovation while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Join us for an exclusive webinar to dive deeper into BioRAG's capabilities and discover how you can leverage this innovative solution to enhance your clinical trial processes. Register now to learn from industry experts and see BioRAG in action.