A Review on Artificial Intelligence in Pharmacy

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the fastest growing technologies in healthcare and pharmaceutical sciences. AI refers to computer systems that can perform tasks which normally require human intelligence such as learning, problem solving, data analysis, prediction, and decision making. In pharmacy, AI is transforming drug discovery, drug development, manufacturing, patient care, pharmacovigilance, hospital pharmacy services, and clinical research. The pharmaceutical industry produces large amounts of data from research laboratories, hospitals, clinical trials, and patient records. AI technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, robotics, and predictive analytics help to analyze these large datasets accurately and quickly. AI improves efficiency, reduces human errors, decreases research costs, and accelerates the development of new medicines. This review explains the role, applications, advantages, limitations, and future prospects of AI in pharmacy.

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables machines to simulate human intelligence by learning from data, recognizing patterns, and making predictions. In pharmacy and healthcare, AI technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing are widely used to improve drug discovery, clinical decision-making, pharmacovigilance, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

In drug development, AI accelerates the identification of potential drug candidates, predicts drug effectiveness and toxicity, supports virtual screening, and reduces clinical trial failures. In clinical pharmacy, AI assists in medication selection, dosage optimization, drug interaction analysis, personalized treatment, and error reduction through decision-support systems and automation.

AI also plays a key role in pharmacovigilance by detecting adverse drug reactions from medical records and databases, enabling faster safety monitoring. In manufacturing and supply chains, AI improves production efficiency, predictive maintenance, quality control, and inventory management.

The main advantages of AI in pharmacy include faster drug development, reduced costs, improved accuracy, better patient care, and enhanced healthcare decision-making. However, challenges remain such as data quality issues, high implementation costs, privacy concerns, ethical risks, and the need for human oversight.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence has become an important tool in modern pharmacy practice and pharmaceutical research. AI improves drug discovery, clinical pharmacy services, pharmacovigilance, manufacturing, and healthcare management. It increases efficiency, reduces costs, and enhances patient safety. Although AI has some limitations and ethical concerns, its benefits are significant. With proper implementation and regulation, AI will continue to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare system in the future.

References

[1] Patel VL, Shortliffe EH. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Journal of Biomedical Informatics. [2] Davenport T, Kalakota R. The potential for artificial intelligence in healthcare. [3] Mak KK, Pichika MR. Artificial intelligence in drug development. [4] Jiang F et al. Artificial intelligence in healthcare: past, present and future. [5] European Medicines Agency reports on AI in pharmaceutical sciences. [6] WHO guidelines on digital health and AI applications.

Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Shishikant Hanmant Masal, Kiran Ramchandra Gorad , Santosh Bayaji Kodalkar , Dr. Naga Raju Potnuri. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.