AI ushers in a healthcare revolution for start-ups

Firms must act to protect their intellectual property, writes Tim Hargreaves

It’s widely held that artificial intelligence (AI) will soon come to revolutionise every part of our lives, but nowhere more so than in healthcare – and that’s an area of innovation where Scotland is firmly leading the way.

I recently attended the Edinburgh International Science Festival where AI was a hot topic of discussion. There was one recurrent question: how can Scotland further excel in this field and capitalise on its lead?

There is vast AI potential for our country and we are firmly in the driving seat when it comes to delivering world-leading breakthroughs.

Incredibly, experts believe that, roughly every three years, the amount of medical data on the planet doubles in size. That tangled mess of data – including research, clinical trials and patient records – will only become denser with time. However, AI systems are able to disentangle it, find patterns and make unseen connections to help provide patients with the best standards of care.

In other words, it’s utterly invaluable work, and of a kind that the Scottish Government is increasingly funding. It’s no coincidence then that a £20 million project was unveiled in Edinburgh in 2016 with the aim of harnessing the power of healthcare and government data, in turn improving the lives of patients and the wider population.

The Farr Institute Scotland and the Administrative Data Research Centre Scotland (ADRC-S) are based at Edinburgh Bioquarter, a life sciences research community that is considered to be amongst the best in the world. Through the analysis of complex sets of data, they are providing researchers with datasets that are enabling new medical discoveries, validation of treatments, and improved NHS healthcare delivery.

Researchers will work with the information to develop commercial drugs, diagnostic tests, and life-sav-