In the life sciences trade, innovation isn’t nearly discovering the following breakthrough molecule — it’s about reimagining your complete system that will get medicines to sufferers sooner. Few corporations embody that transformation extra visibly than AstraZeneca, a world biopharmaceutical chief working in additional than 100 nations. In 2024, the corporate reported $54 billion in income and invested $13 billion in analysis and improvement, advancing tasks throughout oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory, and uncommon ailments.
At the middle of this transformation lies a data-driven mission: To merge science and expertise in ways in which speed up outcomes for sufferers, shareholders, and society. That mission defines the work of Brian Dummann, Vice President of Insights & Technology and Chief Data Officer at AstraZeneca, who leads a staff charged with scaling the affect of knowledge, AI, and expertise throughout the enterprise.
In this primary installment of a three-part interview, Dummann joins Nathan Turajski, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Informatica, to debate how AstraZeneca is democratizing AI, constructing organizational readiness for next-generation innovation, and reimagining governance to go sooner — responsibly.
Using AI to redefine pace in healthcare
Dummann’s staff was shaped with one clear goal: To speed up the affect of knowledge and AI throughout AstraZeneca’s worth chain, from drug discovery to supply.
“I joined AstraZeneca about three years ago to lead a newly formed team focused on accelerating the impact of technology, data, and AI,” he explains. “Our team wakes up every day thinking about how we can accelerate outcomes not only for our shareholders, but for our employees, and most importantly, for the patients we serve.”
Data has lengthy been foundational in prescribed drugs — clear datasets allow medical research, regulatory submissions, and approvals. But Dummann believes the brand new wave of AI and generative applied sciences will basically change the tempo of innovation.
“It takes on average over five years to get a new medicine to market,” he says. “AI can help take steps out of that process.”
By making use of AI to medical design, manufacturing, and commercialization, AstraZeneca can compress discovery timelines, scale new modalities, and broaden affected person entry to life-saving remedies. “It’s about getting the right medicines to the right patients, faster,” Dummann provides.
A tradition wired for curiosity and experimentation
At AstraZeneca, innovation is just not restricted to the R&D labs — Dummann describes a tradition the place curiosity fuels adoption and experimentation occurs at each degree.
“One of our core values as a company is innovation. Our business is wired to be curious — to push the boundaries of science. And to be pioneers in science, we’ve got to be pioneers in technology.”
That curiosity has created a wholesome rigidity between demand and supply. “I’ve got a company full of employees outside of the IT organization who are thirsty to get their hands on data and AI tools,” he says. “It’s a blessing and a challenge. They want new models, new platforms, and they want them now. It’s never fast enough.”
For Dummann, that impatience is a constructive sign — it reveals that workers see expertise as a driver of AstraZeneca’s mission to enhance lives by science.
Democratizing AI: Empowering three audiences
To maintain that momentum, AstraZeneca is intentionally democratizing innovation round AI, giving individuals throughout the enterprise the instruments to experiment and scale. “We operate in empowered teams that can move at their own pace,” Dummann explains. “A big strategy for us is to democratize innovation around AI — not just AI itself.”
He defines three audiences on the core of this technique:
- Developers who design and scale enterprise-wide AI options, orchestrating complicated agent environments.
- Data scientists embedded in analysis, operations, and industrial groups who want quick entry to fashions for experimentation.
- All workers, from HR to finance to authorized, who can apply AI to enhance day-to-day effectivity and insights.
To allow this, AstraZeneca supplies entry to quite a lot of industrial and open-source fashions inside versatile environments that enable experimentation at scale.
“We’re not going to get all of our AI technology from one partner,” Dummann says. “We start with two or three tools, let the business weigh in, and learn from their feedback. We’re absolutely in a portfolio game — across models, platforms, and ecosystems.”
This pluralistic strategy acknowledges that innovation hardly ever comes from a single software — it emerges when numerous applied sciences meet a motivated, data-literate workforce.
Rewiring governance for pace
Empowering workers to innovate is one factor; enabling them to do it safely and shortly is one other. That’s the place AstraZeneca’s AI Accelerator is available in — a cross-functional initiative designed to shorten the time between thought and implementation.
“The ultimate goal is to accelerate how we can experiment with AI and use it to innovate across all areas of our business,” he says. “We’ve built an AI Accelerator whose sole purpose is to work through how to accelerate the introduction of new technologies or quickly review use cases.”
Legacy processes, as soon as measured in weeks or months, now must function in hours or days. The AI Accelerator brings collectively expertise, authorized, compliance, and governance groups to streamline assessments and approvals.
AstraZeneca can also be rethinking its threat administration framework. Traditionally, separate teams dealt with privateness, safety, and AI governance independently. Dummann’s staff is now unifying these touchpoints.
“If you fill out one assessment, that should cover multiple areas,” he explains. “Then we can determine where additional review is needed.”
Upskilling the enterprise: Empowerment meets accountability
As AstraZeneca strikes sooner, Dummann emphasizes that the corporate should additionally upskill workers to make accountable, first-line choices.
“We’re now putting a lot more decision-making in the hands of our employees and empowering them,” he says. “With great power comes greater responsibility.”
That shift ensures that AI adoption scales safely — balancing empowerment with governance. Employees nearer to the work can act shortly, whereas knowledgeable groups focus on high-risk, high-impact areas.
“We’re systematically looking at where we can redefine processes to go quicker,” Dummann says. “It’s about removing bottlenecks without removing accountability.”
For Dummann, AstraZeneca’s AI journey remains to be unfolding — however its path is evident. “I can’t imagine a company more poised,” he says. “We have a culture that values curiosity, the infrastructure to support experimentation, and the vision to align technology with our mission of getting the right medicines to the right patients, faster.”
CDO Magazine appreciates Brian Dummann for sharing his insights with our world group.