Artificial intelligence (AI) related deals made up 3.7% of all deals announced in the clinical trial operations sector in the first six months of 2021. This represents a decrease from the figure of 4.6% throughout all of 2020.

GlobalData’s deals database looks at mergers, acquisitions and venture capital and private equity investments taking place daily between thousands of companies across the world.

In the first six months of 2021, the overall number of announced deals in the clinical trial operations sector increased by 9.9%, from the same period in 2020.

GlobalData's thematic approach to sector activity seeks to group key company information on investments to see which industries are best placed to deal with any issues they may encounter.

These themes, of which AI is one, are best thought of as "any issue that keeps a CEO awake at night", and by tracking them, it becomes possible to ascertain which companies are leading the way on specific issues and which ones have some work to do.