Can AI Improve the Medical, Legal and Regulatory (MLR) Process?

AI-supported first reviews could shorten one of the slowest steps in pharma content delivery.

The Medical, Legal and Regulatory (MLR) review and approval process is one of the most critical steps affecting how quickly promotional content reaches the market. Cumbersome policies, SOPs, processes and tools can create considerable delays in publishing content to customers. In some cases MLR review takes longer than creating the material itself, and the average time to complete MLR in pharma is around 20 days.

My book Omnichannel Customer Engagement in Pharma covers several ways to improve the end-to-end MLR process. Emerging AI technology adds another option by providing an initial review of promotional materials before human reviewers begin. Integrating that capability into the end-to-end content lifecycle can bring significant efficiency to MLR.

I expect the use of these technologies in pharma marketing to change content operations considerably over the next few years.