Toward a new era of pharmaceutical education: TUPLS and transcosmos launch a co-development project to build an AI-powered, dialogue-based learning platform

Advancing support for foundational learning, patient communication, and continuous learning in clinical pharmaceutical education

TOKYO, Sept. 30, 2026/PRNewswire/ -- The Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science (Location: Tokyo, Japan; President: Yoshihiro Mimaki; TUPLS) and transcosmos inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan; Representative Director & Co-president: Masaaki Muta/Takeshi Kamiya; transcosmos) today announced the launch of a joint initiative to optimize "trans-AI Tutor," an AI-powered dialogue-based training tool provided by transcosmos, for pharmacy students and pharmacists and deploy the tool effectively for practical pharmaceutical education. By combining the expertise of TUPLS and transcosmos, the two organizations aim to build a learning environment that enables pharmacy students and pharmacists to deepen their practical learning effectively while promoting the standardization of know-how in medical settings. Starting with support for clinical learning prior to pharmacy practice training, the initiative also looks ahead to supporting responses to advanced and complex clinical cases and incidents, as well as the continuous acquisition and provision of information. Toward a planned release in November 2026, the two parties will begin full-scale preparations for a pilot program targeting fourth-year students at TUPLS.

【Points】

• Practical clinical capability development before pharmacy practice training: Establish an environment where students can repeatedly practice clinical responses through role-play exercises with flexible patient persona settings and faculty-supervised scenarios aligned with the Model Core Curriculum.
• Application to complex and challenging cases: Provide learning opportunities to develop practical response skills through responses to advanced and complex clinical cases and incidents, as well as dialogues with diverse customer personas.
• Visualization of learning progress and feedback design: Enable visualization of learning progress and immediate feedback by incorporating expertise in service quality management and feedback design developed through contact center operations into AI evaluation criteria.
• Continuous learning beyond graduation: Build a foundation that supports continuous learning, from foundational learning for pharmacy students to professional education and ongoing learning after graduation, through the phased deployment of features that provide the latest information, including legislative and regulatory updates.

【Overview】

This initiative aims to implement an integrated learning platform that connects pharmacist education and medical settings through AI. As pharmacists are expected to take on increasingly patient-facing responsibilities toward 2040, students are being called upon to develop practical clinical capabilities before pharmacy practice training, while practicing pharmacists must be prepared to respond to complex clinical cases and incidents and continuously adapt to legislative and regulatory changes. Against this backdrop, by combining TUPLS's educational expertise with transcosmos's expertise in service quality management and feedback design cultivated through contact center operations, the initiative seeks to expand learning opportunities beyond what can be sufficiently provided through role-play exercises conducted solely among faculty members and students, while promoting the standardization of know-how in medical settings.

Specifically, the initiative will establish an environment in which students can repeatedly practice fundamental clinical response skills required before pharmacy practice training, including gathering and providing information, through role-play exercises that allow patient personas to be flexibly configured by age, personality, and medical history. In addition, the project will examine the implementation of functions that enable learners to develop responses to more advanced and complex clinical cases and incidents, provide visualization of learning progress and immediate feedback, and support access to information on future legislative and regulatory updates.

As a result, students will be able to secure practice opportunities tailored to their individual needs while reducing the impact of time and staffing constraints. Faculty members, in turn, will be able to focus more on individualized instruction, curriculum design, and educational activities that deliver greater learning outcomes, rather than being limited to supporting repetitive foundational practice. Over the medium to long term, the initiative envisions expanding the platform into a foundation that consistently supports learning from foundational pharmacy education through continuous learning after graduation. Through implementation and validation in educational settings, TUPLS and X aim to make pharmaceutical education more effective and practice-oriented while contributing to the development of next-generation pharmacists who can respond to an ever-evolving medical environment.

【Comments from project representatives】

Satoshi Takayama, Corporate Executive Officer, transcosmos inc.
Through this initiative, we will combine TUPLS's educational expertise with the expertise in service quality and response quality management that we have cultivated through contact center operations to shape a practical approach to learning support tailored to pharmaceutical education. By transforming learning opportunities and know-how that cannot be sufficiently delivered through human resources alone into practical forms that can be used in educational settings, we aim to contribute to the advancement of pharmaceutical education.

Yoshihiro Mimaki, President, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science
This initiative, which aims to support learning through a single platform, from responding to complex and challenging cases encountered during pharmacy practice training and in professional practice to the continuous learning of the latest legal and regulatory information, is highly significant in that it expands learning opportunities in pharmaceutical education. Through scenarios supervised by practitioner faculty members and AI-powered repetitive practice and automated assessment, we hope to enhance the effectiveness of preparatory training and bring learning that is closely aligned with clinical practice into educational settings.

■ Background to the development of "trans-AI Tutor" and internal use results
"trans-AI Tutor" is a voice-interactive generative AI role-play service developed in-house by transcosmos to address the workload associated with agent training and inconsistencies in response quality in its contact center operations. Traditional role-play training had limited learning effectiveness when conducted among new agents. Moreover, having experienced agents or supervisors act as customers created additional operational burden and workload.

【Internal use results (reference figures)】
Within transcosmos's contact center operations, implementation of the tool increased the number of role-play sessions per trainee agent by approximately sevenfold and replaced training effort equivalent to 2,945 supervisor hours. Additional results included a 50% reduction in training time, a 129% improvement in productivity, and 305 additional successful contracts. This initiative aims to optimize these operational results and insights for pharmaceutical education and apply them in that context.

SOURCE transcosmos inc.