Read The University of Manchester's recent article about us here.

The non-profit making
medication information
freely accessible and reliable using artificial intelligence.

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Clinical Validation

We hope to clinically validate the accuracy and reliability of the AI through peer-reviewed research.

The Code

The AI currently analyses SmPCs and extracts information on active substances, formulation and drug-drug interactions.

What we do.

OpenPIL is a registered non-profit organisation that has built an artificial intelligence algorithm to extract essential drug information from public domain Summary of Product Characteristic Documentation. Through this, we aim to soon compile the largest and most up-to-date medication information database in existence, and then make it free for the world. The project has already won a highly competitive and prestigious award from the University of Manchester.

Why?

This essential clinical information is currently highly-privatised, which restricts access and puts peoples lives at risk. This is particularly of concern for those in developing or war-torn countries, whose access to up-to-date medicinal information is limited, even though it doesn't have to be.

How we are doing it.

The AI currently retrieves information on active-substances, formulations, active-excipients, and drug-drug interactions. We hope to carry out research to improve the AI's reliability and accuracy. We also hope to expand the AI to handle information pertaining to a medication's indications, cautions, advisory instructions, side-effects, safety of use during pregnancy, and storage conditions. This pharmaceutical data will also be very valuable to healthcare startups, local pharmacies, open-source drug development projects and medicinal researchers.

Our Partners

Dosewolf

Created by the founder and developer of OpenPIL, Malik Ahmed, Dosewolf is a medication tracker app with beautiful UI, as featured on the Apple App Store under "New Apps We Love" and "New and Trending".

Our Journey
  • June 25, 2020

    A Barrier Presents Itself.

    After discovering that clinical drug databases cost more than £10,000 per year, whilst building his healthcare startup, Malik looks towards his student-sized wallet, and begins investigating how such essential public information could be priced so steeply.

  • June 30, 2020

    OpenPIL is Founded.

    After scouring the internet for days and finding nothing available, Malik sets out to build the worlds first comprehensive and free drug database, OpenPIL. The non-profit is founded, and a team of healthcare professional volunteers is recruited to assist the efforts.

  • July 16, 2020

    An AI is Born (Accidently)

    Managing a team of eleven people extracting data from thirty documents per week became to large of an administration task for Malik, alongside his healthcare startup and pharmacy degree. So he hacked together an AI to assist him on admin work. The AI would extract the drug name from each document and assign it to the relevant team member. It worked, and it worked well.

  • July 28, 2020

    AI outperforms Humans

    Malik began tinkering with AI behind the scenes as the team continued their work. He expanded its capabilities in processing natural language from the SmPC documents to extract drug-drug interaction information, and compared it to the datasheets the team sent in. When he realised that the AI was working 900% quicker and had fewer errors/omissions, he respectfully called a halt to the teams efforts, reserving their names on the website forever as a thank you, and put all his focus on the AI.

  • May 12, 2021

    Our First Award

    Professor Andrew Leach at the University of Manchester nominates OpenPIL for the competitive and prestigious Making A Difference Award, usually only for alumni, PHD students and staff (Malik was still an undergraduate student). We win in our category!

The Team

Founder, Developer and Maintainer:

Malik Ahmed, MPharm.

Clinical Advisory Board:

Dr. Naveed Khan, MBBS, Ms. Labake Abioye, MPharm, Ms. Raghad Al Sous, MPharm, Mrs. Saba Ahmed, MPharm, Mr. Niran Kaila, MPharm, Mr. Nimesh Patel, MPharm, Ms. Natasha Wilson, MPharm, Ms. Orla Ruane, MPharm, Ms. Nourhan Moharam, MPharm, Mr. Ali Sohail, Bsc.