Doctors can sometimes be a little conservative when using new drug technology, but next-gen mRNA tech physicians appear to be all-in.
That’s according to a new survey from healthcare research company Sermo, which surveyed 1,200 doctors from around the world in mid-January this year and found 76% of respondents said they would prescribe new treatments using mRNA technology.
While known more for its use for COVID-19 vaccination, most doctors said that oncology, where a number of experimental trials are currently being undertaken by the likes of Moderna and BioNTech, is the area that has “the most to benefit from the technology,” according to a release.
But while doctors may be on board, they realize that getting their patients to want to use mRNA technology for new drugs will be a harder sell. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of physicians surveyed felt that patients will be “hesitant to accept” new mRNA technology due to the “polarization of the COVID-19 vaccine” as well as the level of misinformation, especially online, about how it works.
The Sermo survey also found that physicians are wary about the newly launched AI tool ChatGPT, which can generate content based on past information and tailors it to the user. When it comes to its use in healthcare, 34% of doctors reported being excited, 24% said they were nervous and 39% said they were “a little bit of both.”
Physicians did, however, say they would use ChatGPT for research, diagnostics and treatment (39%), patient care and delivery (27%) and clinical and nonclinical workflow (27%), though that was based on just 210 survey respondents.