Working with Novartis to speed up new drug development

NDAs are real, so there's only so much I can disclose about this project. However, it is public knowledge that drug manufacturer Novartis has been working with Microsoft to speed up the long drug development process using AI & ML. This is a large part of what I was working on at Microsoft Research. I worked with a team at Novartis to understasnd their drug development process and identify areas that we could help them improve using our AI & ML platform.

Building an AI platform that lowers the bar

Microsoft was building an AI & Machine learning platform to lower the bar and allow non-tech industries access to useful AI/ML technologies. Think squarespace for non-developers, but AI models instead of templates and WYSIWYG interfaces that hide complex algorithms for users who don't need that level of detail.

The opportunities to help companies solve problems using data in this manner was broad and so the platform had to be universal enough to be useful for pharmaceutical companies, fast food restaurants and everything in between.

Giving power to those who need it, and keeping it simple for those who don't

One part of the product that I owned was creating a system to allow the product's more technical users to control their projects without having to use the WYSIWYG interface. Think of it more like typing out excel functions, for user who already know specifically what they want to happen, but using big data and AI/ML models. It was a techincally challenging area, but proved to be very interesting in terms of UX design. How could we help users understand what options are available to them with certain functions? How can we help them if their formula has errors? What visual indicators can we create to make formulas easier to read and understand? I used my previous coding experience to design a system that was simple, flexible, and rich with quality of life features.

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