Biotech Bytes: Conversations with Biotechnology / Pharmaceutical IT Leaders

AI & Low-Code: The Future of Biotech IT Leadership | Kevin Dushney

• Steve Swan • Episode 38

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AI & Low-Code Transformation in Biotech IT #biotechit #AIrevolution #lowcodetechnology

In this episode, Kevin Dushney, a seasoned CIO with over eight biotech companies under his belt, shares invaluable insights into the rapidly changing landscape of biotech IT. Please visit our website to get more information: https://swangroup.net/

With the rising impact of AI and low-code tools, small biotech teams can now deliver more than ever before. Kevin discusses how these tools are reshaping workflows and how fractional CIOs are transforming leadership models.

From the challenges of compliance to the hype around AI, Kevin cuts through the noise and breaks down what’s real, what’s useful, and what’s not. Tune in to hear practical strategies and discover what’s truly happening behind the scenes in biotech IT.

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#biotechit #airevolution #lowcodetechnology #biotechleadership #fractionalcio #aitools

AI & Low-Code: The Future of Biotech IT Leadership | Kevin Dushney

Steve Swan [00:00:00]:
On Biotech Bytes. Join us for a brief conversation with Kevin Dushney, previous CIO of multiple biotechs in the Cambridge area. When we go through artificial intelligence and what it means to our industry, you can catch us on Apple, Spotify or YouTube. See you there. Welcome to Biotech Bites. I'm your host, Steve Swan and today I'm joined by Kevin Dushney. Kevin's been the head of IT at several biotechs. Kevin, thanks for joining us.

Kevin Dushney [00:00:29]:
Thanks Steve, appreciate you having me.

Steve Swan [00:00:31]:
And to our guests, if at the end you like what you see and you like what you heard, don't forget to like us and follow us on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. So Kevin, what I always like to start out with is, you know, just asking folks, just a quick introductory into you, who you are, kind of how you got to where you are and where you came from.

Kevin Dushney [00:00:50]:
Sure. So originally I went to, you know, school for engineering. Ended up graduating in economics, computers and programming, always a hobby of mine as a kid. And did a couple of jobs unrelated out of college, got into consulting and then joined my first Biotech back in 2000 after consulting in the mid to late 90s across a variety of industries including VC. But I love the biotech clients and one of them, you know, decided to hire me and that was my, you know, initial first time gig back in, in 2000 and haven't left. So I'm on, actually I've just moved on from biotech number eight. And so I've been in the industry the entire career. Everything from early stage, you know, pre clinical, early clinical, through, you know, I've done three commercial builds and a couple of launches along the way.

Kevin Dushney [00:01:48]:
So I've seen quite a number of things, you know, mostly in the small to mid space which I really, really enjoy. Up to, I think the biggest company I was at was maybe 500 employees. But you know, we can talk about that more. But I really like that that's sort of the sweet spot of, you know, seeing impact and you know, being a real change agent in the organization when it's that size.

Steve Swan [00:02:10]:
Now do you come in just, just to get some, some perspective? Yeah, you even come in when they're, I mean, they need to build the foundation when they have pretty much nothing.

Kevin Dushney [00:02:18]:
So yeah, that was actually my last company was, you know, believe it or not, you know, it person number one and you know, went from the proverbial dumpster fire, you know, through five years to, you know, building out a really solid foundation for a phase one clinical company, you know, from erp to you know, we write right from public into, you know, 404A, which is Sarbanes Oxley for you know, those that deal with public companies. So getting all those systems ready, getting SOX compliant, so a building move. So it's been a heck of a last five years and you know, recently I've, I've moved on and now doing fractional CIO type work. But yeah, sometimes I'm, I'm in first one in the door and then the company before that I was hired when the BLA was already filed and it's let's build a commercial organization in 11 months and launch a drug. And that was, that was probably one of the funnest, you know, rides I had in my career until we didn't get the approval which as you know is key, which is too bad. It was an approvable asset with good safety and efficacy and you know, selling gene therapy. It's, this is a story many of, many have heard it came down to manufacturing but you know, without doing, getting into too much detail, basically the venture between the VC firm and the company that had the asset without that milestone payment of approval, we couldn't figure out how to fund the company. So it sort of fell apart unfortunately and that's what the next role.

Kevin Dushney [00:03:50]:
So anyway, the point being early stage all the way through late and sometimes the whole journey which has been really, really rewarding is coming in building a department from one or two, all the capabilities from early R to development in building a commercial launch team and organization and all those capabilities, you know, a lot of work. But I tell you, when you launch a drug, especially our first one for the company, it's hard to describe the satisfaction professionally of having walked that journey.

Steve Swan [00:04:23]:
Well, it's a lot of work to get to that point and it's a big adrenaline rush. I'm sure when you get that it.

Kevin Dushney [00:04:27]:
Is, yeah when you get that approval for the entire org. But you know, and you know, each you know, decade that's gone by, it plays more and more of a role in that and that's something I've really noticed throughout, you know, my career is, you know, you've gone from really cost center to running a lot of infrastructure, order taker all the way to, you know, you're a strategic partner and you can really make, especially now with AI and you know, low code solutions, I mean tremendous, you know, the toolkit, now that you have your disposal even as a small organization, tremendously powerful and I love that because you can have access to the similar tools that A lot of big pharma do bring those in in house, small and take advantage of all that. So you're really an enabler now.

Steve Swan [00:05:16]:
Well, yeah. So and to circle back on that, I mean, technology being everywhere and you know, I've been doing this 26 years and you know, at the beginning it was kind of like, yeah, you know, we handle technology and it was like, be careful what you wish for. Because now everything technology. So yeah, it got into data science, analytics, everything. Data, you know, data. I mean we have to handle it all. I mean it's crazy, you know, it's. And folks sometimes come to us and they're like, you mean you don't just do security or you don't just do data or data analytics? No, we've been doing it all for years.

Steve Swan [00:05:48]:
So it's just kind of what, what we do. Right.

Kevin Dushney [00:05:50]:
The breadth that you have to have on your team is now vastly different than it was, you know, certainly like 20 years ago. Right. So it can be daunting. The pace of change, especially now with AI is, is, you know, amazing on one hand but you know, it's from a compliance and staying on top of what's current. It can be, you know, just a full time job reading and bringing what's relevant into your organization. What's hype, what's real and what to.

Steve Swan [00:06:20]:
Let's hit that for a second. Right. The small company, you know, I mean, so you talked about low code, you talked about AI real briefly, right. What do you think? And I don't want to pigeonhole you into one thing, but what do you think has been one of the biggest because you've seen a lot, you know, you've seen companies, you know, over the last bunch of years, eight of them. Right. So what has been in your opinion the biggest or one of the biggest sort of technology or technology trends that have really helped the small company become viable players?

Kevin Dushney [00:06:52]:
Yeah, I mean originally going back it was, you know, virtualization, you know, not having to have huge data centers to mostly SaaS where companies, you know, the last several companies I've been at are just cloud first. Right. So you don't have these massive capital outlays and you know, you're either big in Amazon or Azure, you know, for your compute. You know, now to present day, thinking about AI as, you know, a number of different ways. One is an enabler, right. So your average office worker can be upskilled, more efficient, improve the speed of writing. A good example is regulatory writing. Right.

Kevin Dushney [00:07:31]:
That's a very popular area right now. Where medical writers, you can even have their leaner team or a less experienced team and upskill them. You know, what the use of, you know, I don't know if we can name names, but you know, we chat GPT at my last company but club could be Claude, it could be Gemini, depending if you're a Microsoft or Google shop. But those tools, when, you know, people are trained on how to prompt, how to use the tools properly and efficiently end up, you know, they go through what I call a J curve where you're, you're learning, but then you're up the ramp and becoming more efficient, more productive. And that's what I've seen acutely over the last at least year or so. As the mod improve, the offerings improve. And even as a small org, we're able to dip our toe in the water and start, you know, deploying these enterprise wide and then start to think about, you know, agents and all right, what else can this stuff do but that the table stakes is just making people more efficient and effective. And that's been, you know, that's real, that's, that's not hype.

Kevin Dushney [00:08:33]:
There's a lot of hype out there. But I think the efficiency part is, is certainly real and people are starting to see those gains and they're tangible.

Steve Swan [00:08:41]:
Do you see that? You know, as a head of it, Are you hiring, this is the million dollar question. Are you hiring less people because of AI?

Kevin Dushney [00:08:50]:
No, not yet. I think that's probably, if I had to speculate, that's probably a more of a big pharma thing. In fact, I've read a couple of articles, you know, back to the medical writing example, I forget the company, but they didn't, they weren't letting people go from their medical writing team, but they were hiring less of them. So they kept it the same and then upskilled or made them more efficient with the, with the staff they had. So that was an interesting dynamic. But it wasn't taking people's jobs per se. It was just making the, you know, preventing them from overgrowing. But it's smaller companies, you know, not yet.

Kevin Dushney [00:09:31]:
I think that the teams are too small and you end up needing, you know, capabilities as you pivot from research to, you know, early clinical to late clinical to commercial. The team's the team. Like they're sort of a baseline team, you know, are we hiring data scientists yet at small companies? Some are. It depends on the nature of your work. If you're really a data heavier, like a diagnostic company. Certainly, yes. But if you're in, you know, small molecule and other things. Probably not yet if you're little.

Steve Swan [00:10:04]:
You know, another thing, another trend I've seen, and you hit on this a minute ago, that you're, you're doing some of the fractional work or starting to do some of the fractional work now. And you did that in the past?

Kevin Dushney [00:10:13]:
I have, yes.

Steve Swan [00:10:14]:
Yeah. 19 and 20 if I remember correctly.

Kevin Dushney [00:10:16]:
Yep, that's right.

Steve Swan [00:10:18]:
You, you know, it, it seems to be a trend for these organizations because they can, they can lay down their foundation, they can have the, the, the folks that are keeping the lights on, the computers going, the phones, whatever you want to call it. And then if they need a Kevin to come in and I don't know, spin up our commercial systems or spin up our cyber, they can hire that specialist on a temporary basis for six hours a week, 30 hours a week, whatever the, whatever the number is that they think they need. And, and you can help them figure out how many hours they need that and then you can roll off after six months or 12 months, or you can grow into, from cyber to, to commercial, to whatever. Correct? Am I exactly right? Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Dushney [00:10:56]:
I mean, I think especially given the current biotech climate, it gives you a chance, you know, chance to rent, you know, those capabilities versus buy them. So if you're a small mid sized biotech and you don't want to hire a CIO or an SVP of it, whatever it is, with a, you know, a lot of compensation like, just like any other executive, you can say, well, you know, I don't need you full time, but I need a strategic roadmap, I need an assessment, you know, what kind of staff do I need? Can you look at the team I have now, where are my gaps and put together? That's your work product. And then what they want to do with it is, you know, phase two, let's call it. But phase one is, let's understand, you know, where you are, where are you trying to go, what do you have in place today? And it's, you know, it's a classic sort of management consulting approach, right. It's what nets out as gaps and then how do you prioritize those, what can you afford to invest in, how quickly did you go and all those things. But that's, you know, through all the biotechs I've been at, I can offer, you know, that advice which makes it fun and you know, you can, you can seriously make an impact and it's a great way to educate people on, here's what Good should look like at stage one, two and three, you know, whatever those milestones are, could be leading up to your first IND or your first IND or NDA bla.

Steve Swan [00:12:16]:
Right. Yeah, I've seen a lot of folks coming to me saying sort of the same thing, meaning, you know, individuals saying, hey, this is, this is something great that I'd love to do, you know, the fractional side of things, you know. But I think there's also big time demand out there for organizations as well. Right, because they need the specialists, but they don't want the specialist to be in house for the next five years. Right?

Kevin Dushney [00:12:37]:
Exactly. Well, yes, and there's a number of reasons for that. One is, you know, cash is, is king more than ever right now. But also, you know, they might be waiting on a data readout and they don't want to hire someone, you know, and then, hey, they don't get the data readout they want. And then they're riffing on employees.

Steve Swan [00:12:55]:
They have a liability there.

Kevin Dushney [00:12:56]:
They have a liability. And also, you know, there's a, you know, I think there's a bit of a more morality to it too, where you don't want to hire someone in and then, you know, three months later you get a bad data readout and then you gotta send those people packing. Unfortunately, it's just part of the business. But if you can avoid it, this is one way to do it. It also thinking about another way is, you know, if you have, you know, two, three clients at a time, you know, eventually you might find one that you really like, they like you, there's a role that emerges, they've got some traction now. You get to do the try and buy it both ways, you know, and you understand the management team, you understand the culture of the company, what they're, what they stand for, what are their objectives. So you're going in really eyes wide open versus, you know, you're kind of rolling the dice. Even if you know somebody that works at a company, which has been everywhere I've been so far, you still don't really know until you get in there what the culture is like.

Kevin Dushney [00:13:50]:
But if you're consulting there for six months, you're gonna know. Right? Really well.

Steve Swan [00:13:54]:
Well, I also think that it's not only do you not know, but each person reacts differently to you. I, I, you know, two personalities. A company's got a personality, an individual's got a personality.

Kevin Dushney [00:14:04]:
Yes.

Steve Swan [00:14:04]:
When two things come together, we don't know how the, the chemical reaction is going to go. Right. So yeah, you trust Your friend. But you know what, your, your personality and your reaction might be different. You never know.

Kevin Dushney [00:14:15]:
Yeah, that's their experience. Exactly. It might not be yours because of, you know, what line you report up into who your boss is. There's a number of factors that'll directly influence that. Where, hey, you're having a great time, but somebody else might not be for, you know, different reasons, but you both work for the same company. So.

Steve Swan [00:14:32]:
Yeah, like exclusive.

Kevin Dushney [00:14:34]:
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Swan [00:14:34]:
The plus sides are, are, are, are saving the cash, are not taking on that long term liability. And then also both sides get to try and buy if they need. That's great. Yeah, good stuff.

Kevin Dushney [00:14:43]:
Yeah, that's fun. And you get to mix it up a little bit. You're not going to the same company every day. You get to, you know, give advice and, you know, it's nice when that input and advice is appreciated, wanted and that, you know, that feels good professionally. And you're helping a company, you know, you're helping, making an impact on that company and their growth trajectory, which is a lot, a lot of fun and professionally, we're warden now.

Steve Swan [00:15:08]:
I have a different question for you. Let's say, for example, I'm a small comp, A new small company CIO or a head of it. I'm just coming into this, I'm going into my first gig. You've already done eight, Right, Done that. And I come to you and I say, hey, Kevin, you got any advice for me? You know, what should I be thinking about? What should I be looking at? What should I be doing? What should I not be doing? You know, that kind of thing.

Kevin Dushney [00:15:30]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:15:30]:
What would your, what would your reaction to that question be?

Kevin Dushney [00:15:33]:
I would love to do that. So there's a colleague of mine who's been in this industry a little bit longer than I have that does exactly that, essentially mentors new heads of it. And that's something I'd love to get into at some point. And I've done it informally on the side, but it's just, hey, let's connect up. And that's essentially the consulting engagement with the company is, hey, help our head of IT work through some of this stuff. And then as a consultant, they have a safe space, right, to discuss and like, is this a lousy idea? Is this, is this awful? Is this going to resonate? Can you review my deck, you know, before I pitch this to the ET or, you know, whoever my boss is? So, yeah, I think it's a fantastic way. And it's, you know, hey, I, I've Been slogging away at this for a long time. I've learned a lot of things.

Kevin Dushney [00:16:25]:
And if you can teach somebody, hey, here's where I've made mistakes. Here's where I would have done different and impart that into someone that's brand new and role. Yeah, that's a huge opportunity to help somebody out and, you know, get them, you know, help them accelerate their career without as many mistakes, hopefully.

Steve Swan [00:16:45]:
Sure. I mean, why reinvent?

Kevin Dushney [00:16:46]:
That was exactly.

Steve Swan [00:16:47]:
Actually the whole reason. Very, very, very, very big reason for starting this podcast. Right. Because, you know, it's a collaborative group. I t folks.

Kevin Dushney [00:16:57]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:16:58]:
When I would talk to you or anybody on the phone, hang up, it's gone. You know, and to share ideas and to not reinvent the wheel. You know, people see this, they can pick up the phone, they can say, hey, Kevin, listen, I'm working on this, or I'm working on that. Pingyon, LinkedIn or whatever they do. Right? Yeah, that. That was kind of the whole idea behind all this, because I think that the whole groups, you know, when I came back, I was. I was in Germany. I was in.

Steve Swan [00:17:21]:
I was at Oktoberfest, and we were in the air, and I turned to my wife, I said, I'm starting a podcast.

Kevin Dushney [00:17:25]:
She's like, yeah.

Steve Swan [00:17:26]:
And when I called a few folks, they were like, great idea. Do it. And, you know, people like it. They just pick up the phone and they call the Kevin's or they call the Bob McGowans at Regeneron or whoever.

Kevin Dushney [00:17:36]:
You know, it's a big part of it. It's been a big part of my career, quite frankly. You know, somebody gave me advice, you know, early on and, you know, said, hey, networking is very, very important. And, you know, buying somebody a cup of coffee or a lunch or even a dinner is the cheapest advice you're going to get, you know, from somebody. And he was right. You know, it was a very blunt statement, but, you know, he. He was right. And that paid off in a big way where, you know, actively pursued, you know, building relationships over time with other IT leaders.

Kevin Dushney [00:18:07]:
And I still keep those. Those relationships today, which is great. And in fact, we even have Slack Board with. There's got to be 60 companies in it now where we're constantly sharing information. You know, it's not confidential stuff. But, hey, what'd you pick for this vendor? What about this software? What do you think about this? And who's got a contact here to, hey, here's a job posting that I saw. Is anyone interested? So it's it's a, you know, whole community, which is a small one, as you know, in Boston biotech and, you know, other markets as well. But since I'm here, I'll mention Boston.

Kevin Dushney [00:18:42]:
But, but there's a lot of collaboration. You know, it's something that, I don't know that, that exists in other, you know, facets of a, of a company, but certainly in it, it's been a, in my experience, it's been a very collaborative set of individuals in the, in the area that love talking to each other and sharing.

Steve Swan [00:18:59]:
I'm going to argue that it goes all the way down to the, the beginner level. And here's why I'm going to argue that because I have a daughter that just graduated from the computer science school in Pittsburgh. Right. She data science to take statistics.

Kevin Dushney [00:19:11]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:19:11]:
And in high school, all the way back to high school, when she was doing her job or her Python or her AP Computer science.

Kevin Dushney [00:19:17]:
Yep.

Steve Swan [00:19:17]:
She would come home, she's like, dad, listen, when I'm in my computer classes, we all collaborate, we all share ideas. In our other classes, we can't do that. It's considered cheating.

Kevin Dushney [00:19:27]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:19:28]:
And she said, dad, I like the computer science model better. She said, yeah, you know, but I think they start there. Well, they should start there, you know.

Kevin Dushney [00:19:38]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it, it's a great way to again, network, build relationships, figure out how to collaborate on a project. I mean, we're learning that early in college. And that's something that you already have a leg up when you hit the workforce is, you know what? I know how to work with other people and I've learned some things. Here's some of the bumps I hit into, ran into, and here's some of the things that work really well. So, you know, learning that as early as possible, I think is a huge skill to develop is, you know, working as a team versus you're right in other classes. Like, no, I'm working as myself to pass this test and pass this class. And yes, that's still helpful, but it's not teaching you those skills that map directly into, you know, your, your likely what your first job will be.

Steve Swan [00:20:23]:
Right. And in the computer science class, you know, she was telling me, you4 have to handle this problem, you4, this problem, you know, that kind of thing.

Kevin Dushney [00:20:30]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:20:30]:
Which is great.

Kevin Dushney [00:20:31]:
I mean, you could even start to develop some leadership who's leading the team.

Steve Swan [00:20:34]:
Right.

Kevin Dushney [00:20:35]:
You know, who's fallen behind, who's not turning in their homework, who's missing their code. Like, you know, that killed It's a little microcosm of a business, essentially.

Steve Swan [00:20:45]:
Yeah, you're dealing with it. Right, exactly. You know, so I want to. I want to ask a question more. More out of curiosity for myself. Yeah, I mentioned the low code stuff earlier.

Kevin Dushney [00:20:55]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:20:56]:
Is that, I mean, is that just huge right now? Is it getting bigger? Tell me a little bit about that.

Kevin Dushney [00:21:00]:
I think it's getting bigger. I think, you know, low code, to be more precise, like workflows. You've probably seen, you know, the term mcp, which is basically stringing your other agents to do work. All the rage right now. You know, we'll see if this actually bears fruit in the business world. But, you know, it's all over Twitter and other social platforms where, you know, people are now starting to train, you know, each agent to do a specific piece of work and then hand it off. But there's plenty of sites now where, hey, I have no idea how to code in Python, right? And tell me, you know, what you want this app to do and it goes and builds it for you. So this AI play now of building mini apps is pretty easy for the average person to do, or, you know, other products like Zapier, where it's like orchestration and workflows, you know, now with, you know, with Python, you can run code and a bunch of triggers.

Kevin Dushney [00:21:58]:
So I think these things are starting to make, you know, teams more efficient and, you know, Airtable, which is a lightweight cloud database. There's so many great tools out there for small shops that they can take advantage of and build really sophisticated workflows and solutions, even as a young company.

Steve Swan [00:22:17]:
Yeah, no, I think I see them all, you know, different companies using different tools. Yeah, right. You know, I just, and this is.

Kevin Dushney [00:22:24]:
The stuff I talk about with my colleagues all the time is, you know, hey, how are you doing this? And they're like, oh, I built a workflow to do that. And you know where. It's funny how I was at a Boston SIM meeting about a month ago and the topic was risk management. And we, you know, we, we stayed there for a little bit, but as soon as AI came up in the context of risk, like, it dominated the conversation. It's. It's pervasive and it's, it's funny that you reflect after the meeting like, well, the topic was supposed to be X and the whole group collectively agreed to talk about AI for, you know, 60, 70% of the meeting. So top of mind for everyone for a lot of reasons. And they're generally interested.

Kevin Dushney [00:23:05]:
They want to empower their teams or hey, CEOs are talking to each other on a plane like, hey, I got this AI initiative. What are you guys doing? And then there's a bit of a FOMO component.

Steve Swan [00:23:16]:
Well, yeah, I had that happen once. I had somebody call me and say, we need our head of AI. This was January Ish or something. And what do you need that for? What does that mean? Yeah, what do you. They said, well, we just don't want to fall behind. I said, yeah, yeah, I'm the wrong guy for that. Yeah, sorry. You know, I mean, because if something goes wrong, which it will, because we don't know what we're solving for.

Steve Swan [00:23:37]:
Right. You know, that's it.

Kevin Dushney [00:23:38]:
Well, I was just about to say, if you. If you're saying we don't want to fall behind, that tells me you don't really know what you want.

Steve Swan [00:23:43]:
No. And then all of a sudden, when, when, when the. When we don't know what we're solving for, we get to the end of the equation. This is what we solved for.

Kevin Dushney [00:23:50]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:23:50]:
And we solved for the wrong things. We didn't know what we're solving for anyway. Now what's.

Kevin Dushney [00:23:54]:
What's the probability of success there?

Steve Swan [00:23:55]:
Now it's my fault. Yeah, right.

Kevin Dushney [00:23:58]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:23:59]:
Thanks, but no thanks. You know.

Kevin Dushney [00:24:00]:
Yeah, agreed.

Steve Swan [00:24:01]:
But, but, but on the flip side of that, you know, I had. Not this past Christmas, the Christmas before, when I was talking to a bunch of different CIOs. I think collectively a whole group of them had maybe one use case. This past year, I. I had eight of them on a. On a collective podcast. And again, I. To your point, I had, you know, a bunch of.

Steve Swan [00:24:19]:
And I sent out questions ahead of time. You know, think about these. We got to question one for two hours. It was about AI, you know, and it's derailing. Each of them had four or five use cases.

Kevin Dushney [00:24:30]:
Yeah. You know, so, yeah, everyone wants to talk about it and say, and also learn from others, like, how are you using it? And it's funny because that maps to. If you think about prompting, you know, everyone learns how to prompt at a different rate. And even if I teach you, you know, Steve, like, how to prompt, I mean, you're going to play with it however many times, you know, however many hours or minutes you have in a day to experiment. But the better you get at prompting, the better are you are going to be with AI and if you're really good in the company, how do I take what you've now developed and teach that to others and share sort of grassroots and That's a way to upscale the entire organization versus, hey, I've got five people out of 200, they're really, really good at this, and 150 that are mediocre. How do I change that? Well, that's one way to do it.

Steve Swan [00:25:21]:
Have them again, collaborate.

Kevin Dushney [00:25:23]:
Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, I can't drive at all. I can get the catalyst in motion, I can provide the tools, I can do some training. But ultimately, what's going to resonate is, you know, especially if you're a scientist and you're sharing with another scientist on your team. That's much more compelling and powerful than me trying to teach you. Because I don't know what it is you're trying to do specifically with the AI beyond the general stuff and generally. I know, but, you know, when it gets into the detailed work of, you know, comp chem or comp bio, you guys should be talking to each other once you start to learn how to use AI very effectively in your domain.

Steve Swan [00:25:58]:
Well, what I've also seen some people do. And again, kind of taking it down another level here.

Kevin Dushney [00:26:02]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:26:03]:
Is going to their organization and saying, let's. It can come from internal or external, however they do it.

Kevin Dushney [00:26:10]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:26:11]:
Train on terminology. Let's get.

Kevin Dushney [00:26:13]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:26:14]:
Have the same terminology. Right. I mean, beginning of the Internet age, we're talking, you know, web browsers, search engines, you know, what does all this mean? Right. You know.

Kevin Dushney [00:26:21]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:26:21]:
Let's all understand the same terminology so that when we do talk, we're all speaking. We're all speaking English, we're not speaking different languages. You know, and I've seen some folks doing that. And I even see some training organizations popping up doing those kinds of things, which I guess helps. Right. Because some of the executives, the CEOs, and the CFO, too, they could learn. So they can. The same language as everybody else as well.

Steve Swan [00:26:43]:
Right?

Kevin Dushney [00:26:43]:
Exactly. Yeah. And they're, they're my experience. They're the ones typically. The C suite are the ones typically lagging. Right. And it's, you know, this becomes almost. It's funny, I was doing some training at a company and it's like, well, it seems like, you know, old people are less, you know, are more resistant to using AI, like, hey, you know, but it's, you know, they're all late 20s, early 30s.

Kevin Dushney [00:27:09]:
I said, now I use AI all the time. Yeah, I love it. But, you know, I'm an it. But if you think about, you know, the average C suite member, it's interesting because you're seeing. Starting to see Some mandates out there, which I don't agree with. But you know, I think there's better ways to, you know, to drive AI as part of your culture, if that's what you're after. But mandating it I think is the wrong approach. But you know, the, the challenge is there's different adoption rates or even different desires or like lack of trust.

Kevin Dushney [00:27:43]:
Like how do I trust this thing? Do I really want to use it? And you look at the data and who, the metrics of like who's using and whether it's in Copilot or ChatGPT, you can see, you know, not what they're prompting for of course, but who's using it every day and who uses it once a month or zero. And you can use those data to start, you know, targeting some training and understand, okay, what's, what's preventing you from adopting this and you know, build your, or tune your training program around those, those data.

Steve Swan [00:28:12]:
Right? And some of them are encouraging folks to just like you said earlier, just play with it, you know, use it, do, do, do whatever, do what you would consider silly stuff but, but do it, use it. You know, see how it could potentially help you. Right.

Kevin Dushney [00:28:25]:
And a lot of people are using in their personal life and that starts to mount too where, hey, on building, you know, workout programs or meal plans or planning a trip, you know, the use cases are endless and, but the point is you're now learning how to use AI on your own. Then you can bring that into the workplace and you're getting better at just prompting, being more specific or hey, you are to act as a Travel agent with 25 years of experience specializing in trips to Europe and like seeding the prompt that way that the quality of your answers back are so much better. Better than you just said, hey, I want a trip to, you know, plan a trip to Ireland. Tell me what I should do. Like super generic and your, your, the outcomes are going to be completely different.

Steve Swan [00:29:11]:
Correct. So no, it's, it's, it's amazing, you know, what's going on. But then when you start talking about AI like you said earlier, people start getting into the whole security thing, you know, not, not a lot of folks are going to, you know, talk about that. I did have a, one gentleman talk, tell a story about how he was using AI at his company and up popped, you know, form formulary data from a competitor, you know, and screenshots sent it off to the other CIO at that company. So that's, that's everybody I've heard about.

Kevin Dushney [00:29:42]:
That Kind of stuff. And it's, that's, that's what's going to really get you in trouble. And you know, one of the, one of the early things you need to do is, is have some sort of AI governance team and training. Right. You can't. Not something you can block. Companies have talked about, oh, we're going to block AI. Like, no, you're not.

Kevin Dushney [00:30:00]:
No, you can't, you can't. And it's like blocking the Internet. It's not going to happen.

Steve Swan [00:30:04]:
You're going to be doing it over here.

Kevin Dushney [00:30:05]:
Then at the end of the day I can just take this out and, you know, I've got, you know, AI apps. So it's education, training. Don't put company data in personal AI tools. Use our sanction tools. But it also means making that right investment, not just saying no. But here's a platform we do sanction, it's protected, here's how you use it. And if you have questions, you come to the team, legal it, whomever's, you know, sitting at the table on your AI governance committee to pose those questions, you know, is this good or not? Same thing with projects. If we're going to go do an sow with a external party, well, how are you using our data? All right, Are you training the model? Is it going to be exposed to anyone else? To AI showing up in every tool under the sun? Acrobat, you know, Adobe's pushing it, but that's.

Kevin Dushney [00:30:56]:
It's not them. Everyone is putting AI in their tools, things you already own. Now it just shows up. What do you do? Right. You have to be prepared for all those scenarios because it's not slowing down, it's accelerating and getting your arms around it, you know, sooner rather than later is going to be.

Steve Swan [00:31:13]:
Get in front of it. Right? Yeah. And you got different toggles in there. Right. Whether it can learn enterprise wide or you let.

Kevin Dushney [00:31:19]:
That's right.

Steve Swan [00:31:20]:
You know, yeah, yeah, right.

Kevin Dushney [00:31:21]:
What do you integrate it with? And you know, do you hook it up to SharePoint or OneDrive or your Google Drive, depending on what kind of shop you are.

Steve Swan [00:31:28]:
Right.

Kevin Dushney [00:31:28]:
You know, that's a decision point that, you know, you have to get comfortable with. And oftentimes it's your, your legal or IP team that are most concerned and typically with good reason. I mean, IP is, IP landscape is in drug discovery. It's becoming very interesting with AI. And now you have to prove that a human had significant contribution in the development of the patent. Like super subjective. Right. But you know, including like, how did you, how what prompts failed, what prompt work, showing how you got there, becoming part of the, the equation where you're not going to think that way naturally, just like, oh, I got the answer.

Kevin Dushney [00:32:07]:
Here we go. And your IP lawyer is going to have to say, no, no, no, no, I need to see more because when I file, they're going to want to know exactly how AI was used in the development of this patent application, you know, whatever this, you know, novel chemical entity or whatever it is you have as part of the application process. So it's an interesting landscape right now.

Steve Swan [00:32:28]:
That is interesting. I didn't know that. Huh?

Kevin Dushney [00:32:29]:
Yeah. Now, I got a good education about six months ago from our head of IPs, like, because the USPTO had just released guidance on it and he was walking me through it and it was an eye opening moment for me because I hadn't read that, you know, that, that work yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was all over it. It's his job.

Steve Swan [00:32:48]:
It is.

Kevin Dushney [00:32:50]:
That's the stuff that just is constantly changing.

Steve Swan [00:32:52]:
Well, and as a company, you own AI as if it were an employee. It was yours. It's you. You know, the buck stops with you. You can't say AI did that. No, well, AI did it for you, you know.

Kevin Dushney [00:33:04]:
Yeah, that's, yeah, that's the. You're not going to get away with a dog ate my homework on that one.

Steve Swan [00:33:08]:
No, not at all. Not at all. So, all right, well, so we're, we're come, we're, you know, we're winding down. But my, my, my last question that I like asking folks at, you know, any, any, any other technologies, any other things that you think we should talk about that you think are either here or coming, that, you know, are shaping our, our industry that you'd like to touch on.

Kevin Dushney [00:33:29]:
It's hard to move away from the AI discussion in terms of disruptive technology. I don't see too much out there right now because that's where there's just so much focus there. But I think it's more on the implications. Does it mean less jobs or job shifting? I think that's all tbd. There's a lot of hype across the entire sector of AI, including, oh, people are going to lose their jobs. Remains to be seen, you know, that that could be true. But you know, this idea, if you, I talked about this on another podcast the other day about Industry 5.0, which is more about the, the human component and coexistence with AI and robots and using it to create together versus displace. You Know, it's, it's an ideal, but it's more robotics, but the human still plays a very important part of the equation.

Kevin Dushney [00:34:27]:
So it'll be interesting to see where this, where this heads over the next, you know, three to five years.

Steve Swan [00:34:32]:
Right, yeah, I'm just, I'm seeing the, the, you know, humans. Right. Taking the AI and to make a pretty, you know, crude analogy or example, I guess you could say is, you know, maybe AI is taking away two hours of the mundane tasks they have to do every day. Right, right. They can do it in 10 or 15 minutes. So now instead of spending six hours doing the higher level stuff, they're spending the full eight hours exactly seven and a half.

Kevin Dushney [00:34:54]:
Right? Yeah, yeah. In fact that's, that's how I approach, you know, training with oftentimes with groups is pretend you had a, a summer intern. Right. What would you delegate to this intern? And it's like repetitive things and you know, there's, there's items you could be spending your time on that are higher up the food chain and value and how can you free up that time by offloading it to AI just like you would an intern or you know, something similar. And that's, that, that's a good way to frame it I found for people like, oh, okay, it gets the juices flowing about, all right, what do I do daily and what could I automate? Right, right. And it helps us as an IT team engage with you on how could we help you automate some of those tasks.

Steve Swan [00:35:36]:
Right, of course. Yeah. No, that's all good stuff. I like that.

Kevin Dushney [00:35:39]:
Yeah. A lot of it is about data in governance too. So that's the other thing where data sins are now fully on display when you go down the AI road where you could get away with that pre AI much easier. Still wasn't great. But now you try to get results out of, you know, garbage in, garbage out still applies in this day and age. So we've spent, you know, a lot of time at my previous company on governance. Metadata, the data consistent. Otherwise you're not doing much with AI on top of that.

Kevin Dushney [00:36:12]:
And that's where big pharma has a big advantage with the resources, the mountains of data they're sitting on for doing predictive type work versus just querying. Right. In natural language. But I think that's the other, you know, again, it's AI related. But you know, I encourage anyone who's not already doing it to start getting governance and making that a huge priority. It's not the sexy part of AI, but you have to do it, otherwise you're not going to get the benefit you think you are out the other side.

Steve Swan [00:36:41]:
Yeah. Whenever I talk to folks, when we get into the data piece, it's kind of.

Kevin Dushney [00:36:45]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:36:45]:
My analogy is always, you know, with your AI tools and your, and your, you know, your a. Whatever you built with technology, you're building this sexy looking Ferrari. But the data, which is the gasoline going into it, if you don't have gas to put in that Ferrari, it's not going to go anywhere, you know.

Kevin Dushney [00:36:59]:
Exactly. That's right.

Steve Swan [00:37:02]:
The data is, you know.

Kevin Dushney [00:37:03]:
Yeah. Yep. 100.

Steve Swan [00:37:05]:
So anyway. Okay, well, cool. Thank you very much. I do have one final question. More enough personal note. I ask everybody, I don't know if you've watched any of my podcasts all the way through. If you have, you've heard this question. If you haven't, then you haven't.

Steve Swan [00:37:18]:
So I like seeing live music. I like bands. Right. And, and so my wife and I, we go and we see sometimes we've been to a few big, you know, whatever those are called, festivals, but we'll go and see different bands and such like that. So I like to ask folks, just on the personal side.

Kevin Dushney [00:37:31]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:37:33]:
Favorite live band you've ever seen. And, and if you, you don't like live music, that's, that's fine.

Kevin Dushney [00:37:38]:
This is easy.

Steve Swan [00:37:38]:
There's a layout.

Kevin Dushney [00:37:39]:
Yeah. Metallica. Far and away.

Steve Swan [00:37:41]:
Really cool. Did you see them when they just came around?

Kevin Dushney [00:37:44]:
Yep. My wife and I saw them at Gillette last year. Fantastic. And we had, we had seen them twice when we lived in Chicago in the mid-90s, and they're just so good. And the product they put out today, I mean, they're older than we are and they are absolutely. Their, their shows are fantastic. So if you're into that kind of music, I can't recommend enough. But it was such a good time, especially at Gillette.

Kevin Dushney [00:38:11]:
Yeah, it was great.

Steve Swan [00:38:12]:
I don't even think you have to be into that kind of music because my wife and I, we go, we see, we see Pearl Jam. We see.

Kevin Dushney [00:38:18]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:38:18]:
You know, we see Dead and Company. We see a bunch of those kinds of COVID bands. We see all sorts of bands. And I've always listened to Metallica and over Memorial Day weekend, I went to two days of it in Philadelphia for the first time.

Kevin Dushney [00:38:28]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:38:29]:
And it was awesome. It was.

Kevin Dushney [00:38:30]:
Yeah, they're. They're just fantastic performers. And to see them still so into their work after doing this forever is. I mean, they're not just mailing it in no, some of these. Some of these bands, you see it, you know, Fenway, you know, it was another concert last year and had what, Def Leppard and.

Steve Swan [00:38:51]:
Yeah.

Kevin Dushney [00:38:52]:
Bernie, who now has a. You know.

Steve Swan [00:38:55]:
Yeah. Steve Perry's not there. It's a different God. And they hired. They got some kid, him on YouTube. They found that kid on YouTube.

Kevin Dushney [00:39:01]:
I know. Isn't that hilarious? Yeah. I'm like, wow, you're staring like, that's not Steve Perry. And like. No, Steve Perry's gone.

Steve Swan [00:39:08]:
I'm like, gone. Yeah, he worked out something. I think he gets like 20% of all they do, you know? Yeah.

Kevin Dushney [00:39:14]:
I think they booted him because he wanted too much money. But I think it's fun to be there because it's Fenway. But, you know, compared to going to Gillette and watching the Metallica show, It was just 19, really.

Steve Swan [00:39:26]:
I never got. So I grew up in Rhode Island. I went to school in Boston and never. Never got it. I went there to see the Rolling Stones or Grateful. Never got in because I was with two or three other people and we had just enough tickets where one person. So we left, you know, or I mean, got it. YouTube, Rolling Stones, grateful Dead.

Steve Swan [00:39:42]:
It happened on all of them. Well, it wasn't Gillette then. It was Foxborough. Was it Foxborough then? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin Dushney [00:39:49]:
So, yeah. Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:39:50]:
I've seen some shows in Fenway. That's fun, you know.

Kevin Dushney [00:39:52]:
Yeah, yeah, Gillette's a good venue. I saw is a few years back, but I saw AC DC there. That as well. They were really.

Steve Swan [00:40:01]:
I'd like to see.

Kevin Dushney [00:40:02]:
But the most recent one was Metallica. And then they'd be consistent though, because like I said, mid-90s to last year and the concert was just, you know, fantastic.

Steve Swan [00:40:11]:
So I'll tell you what, Lars really still nails those drums, man.

Kevin Dushney [00:40:16]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:40:16]:
Woo. Yeah, he's just like crazy.

Kevin Dushney [00:40:19]:
Yep, it's. And that's a testament. Like, that's a lot of effort to keep that skill up and like I said, not mail it in and they're out there to perform for the crowd and you can tell it's. It's a lot of fun. We had a great time.

Steve Swan [00:40:31]:
Yeah, they're like 60, 61, those guys. 62 right in there, you know.

Kevin Dushney [00:40:35]:
Yeah. So not spraying chickens, but.

Steve Swan [00:40:38]:
No, no, still sound great. Well, Kevin, thank you very much. That was great. I haven't gotten a Metallica yet, so I'm. I'm glad you did that. Yeah, that was good stuff. Awesome. Thank you very much for spending time with us.

Kevin Dushney [00:40:49]:
Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it.