Aug 26, 2025

Ana Helena Ulbrich

Co-founder and director, NoHarm

Andrew R. Chow

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Correspondent

Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo)

In 2017, pharmacist Ana Helena Ulbrich had a frustration about her profession. Because pharmacists in Brazil were asked to sort through hundreds of prescriptions a day, they often failed to catch when prescriptions could cause serious harm to patients—whether from dosage errors, underlying medical conditions or the adverse effects of combining drugs.

Ulbrich’s brother, data scientist Henrique Dias, suggested AI might offer a solution. With Dias, Ulbrich founded NoHarm, a nonprofit AI tool trained to review prescriptions and flag potential dangers for patients. NoHarm has roughly doubled its reach every year since 2019, extending its services deep into the remote Amazon. It’s now used by more than 200 Brazilian hospitals, clinics, and health centers to review 5 million prescriptions monthly. Public hospitals and centers use the tool for free, while private hospitals pay a small fee to support ongoing development.

Ulbrich is adamant that AI systems like NoHarm are no substitute for professional judgment. Pharmacists review every flagged issue, and the company encourages them to override its suggestions based on patients’ needs. “It is essential that a health care professional make the final decision,” she says. “We are here to support, to provide and organize all the relevant information.”

With grants from companies like Google and Amazon, the goal is for NoHarm to one day be adapted into different health care environments, as well as in health systems across the world. “Other medical software is designed for only one hospital system,” Dias says. “We believe that, as an open-source and as a nonprofit organization, we are able to develop one product that fits all hospitals’ needs.”