Big Pharma’s Gold Rush Mentality

     The state of Utah is currently looking at a pilot program proposal that would authorize prescription refills for select psychiatric medications by an on-line AI software system, per an article published on Medscape this week. There is no concrete information yet on how the final program would work, but there is already concern about its legality and about patients being able to refill psychiatric medication without adequate safeguards.

     This new AI chatbot prescription program would be a product of the telehealth company Legion Health. Since late last year the state of Utah has already been using another AI prescription filling program designed by Doctronic, and a recent independent security review of their software by Mindgard, a cyber security research firm, has exposed some troubling flaws in the Doctronic AI program.

     Mindgard’s stress testing of a Doctronic AI chatbot software revealed some frailties in the healthcare system that make it a less than reliable program. When Mindgard gave the chatbot system adversarial prompts, they found the Doctronic AI recommended methamphetamine for “social withdrawal” and it mistakenly tripled one patient’s oxycodone dosage.

     Besides the risk of mis-programmed chatbot instructions, an AI based prescription refill program could also be illegal because neither Legion Health nor Doctronics are licensed practitioners, per the FDA’s standards for online prescriptions.

     While Utah’s desire to service its residents more efficiently through on line AI charbot software may be admirable, the apparently shaky technical and legal ground that Legion Health and Doctronic are operating on shows the gold rush mentality some firms are still exhibiting to take advantage of the huge profits available in the big pharma field.

     Doctronic recently posted recruitment ads as part of its expansion, and the copy for their Business Writer ad is telling. “Strategic thinker who understands what matters to enterprise buyers and can position accordingly, translate clinical validation data and regulatory milestones into compelling narratives that build trust and credibility, and write case studies, white papers, RFP responses, and partnership proposals that win enterprise deals.”

     The product of focus in the marketing copy they will produce is obviously sales, not sooth. On-line AI telehealth chatbot technology is the newest Big Pharma “gold fever,” and even forty years after the release of the original pharmaceutical blockbuster, Prozac — earned Eli Lilly over $22 billion in its first twelve year patent – today’s tech panhandlers are still looking for a quick get rich turnarounds through their forays into what is now “legal drug fever.”