What does a data science team at a leading consumer health company do?
From predicting flu, to new vitamin formulations, at Haleon, data science meets the science of health
by Emma Duckworth (Head of Data Science at Haleon)
In July 2022 we said #HelloHaleon and launched as the world’s largest company singularly focused on delivering better everyday health with humanity. At Haleon, we have an amazing portfolio of brands including Sensodyne, Advil, Centrum, Theraflu and Voltaren that support people throughout the world to personally manage and improve their everyday health.
Our mission as a company is to deliver this healthcare with humanity and as the Data Science team we support this mission with Trusted Data Science and Machine Learning.
I often get asked what the data science team does, why does a healthcare company need Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AI & ML)? The reality is that Data Science is playing a critical role in the transformation of consumer healthcare. We will use this page to share some insights into the way we work, our data science learnings at the world’s leading consumer healthcare company, some of the innovative solutions we are working on, and to introduce the amazing people in the team.
So what is it that we do?
We are a central data science team, meaning that we are one global team who collaborate to work on problems across the company, ranging from marketing to supply chain to R&D. Our team members in the UK, US, India and China are product focused, working closely with tech & business partners to develop productionised models as part of solutions that support our colleagues across the business. At a company with over 20,000 colleagues, there is a lot we could work on. So it’s critical that we prioritise, and focus on the most impactful problems that will help our consumers, colleagues and partners. The problems that really matter to a consumer healthcare company.
In marketing, our work ranges from projects you might expect like optimising our media and creative effectiveness or using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to help understand what our consumers are asking us. Questions vary from the next flavour of Chapstick, to sensitive questions on dosage of regulated products; it is critical we answer quickly and accurately. While many new innovations like ChatGPT are exciting the field, these have yet to be tested in the medical setting, providing plenty of opportunity for exploration. We also help pharmacists with health specific challenges such as forecasting population levels of flu and respiratory illness so we can meet consumer needs. Excitingly, technology is providing new ways to make healthcare more accessible. Haleon’s partnership with Microsoft and the SeeingAI app is a great example of how AI is helping visually impaired people to “read” our packaging and be empowered to manage their own health.
Haleon doesn’t just sell products, we also make them. As a global company with a complex supply chain, we face many of the same challenges as other retailers where disruptions from covid-19 are ongoing. Accurate and agile forecasting is a powerful tool in our logistics and inventory management and is helping to transform our business. Smart manufacturing and smart control systems are areas of industrial data science that are rapidly evolving using new optimisation techniques and methods like dynamic time warping (my current favourite even if just for the name). Working with everything from shipping data to data streaming from machines in the factories means plenty of challenges not just in science but engineering too.
Before the factory floor, we are exploring novel data science applications in formulation science and stability modelling, so we can work with our R&D teams to develop new health innovations quicker. We are exploring how personalisation and predictive ML can improve consumer health recommendations.
Team and Culture
The variety of our work is only possible thanks to the collaboration of our team’s deep data science and machine learning expertise with Haleon’s leading domain experts in the science of health and deep human understanding. Through events including hackathons, our weekly lecture series and coding Dojos we are building a data science culture where we get the chance to learn from each other and innovate for better outcomes.
From our Apprentices to Principal Data Scientists, everyone has a perspective we value.
This is underpinned by our passion for AI ethics. The regulatory space is rapidly evolving with new laws such as the EU AI Act on the horizon. We are evolving our Responsible AI principles and corresponding standards for Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) to ensure that our science lives up to our ambition.
If our work in transforming consumer healthcare, how we do it and the brilliant people behind the algorithms are of interest, watch this space. I look forward to sharing more about all things Trusted Data Science at Haleon.
