artificial intelligence

The global AI drug discovery market, valued around $1 to $1.7 billion in 2023, will be worth a multiple of that by the decade’s end. Analysts project the sector could be worth $9 billion or more. 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Recipients: David Baker Demis Hassabis John Jumper Achievement: Computational protein design and structure prediction…

In 2024, we saw the expanded use of synthetic data and natural language processing transform drug discovery and development. In a batch of predictions published in December of 2023, one expert predicted that synthetic data was set to “take off” in drug research. In 2025, the pendulum could begin swinging back the other way, according…

As a journalist interested in decoding AI and its impact on the research landscape, I recently took Insilico Medicine’s DORA (Draft Outline Research Assistant) for a test drive, a new platform summarized here. DORA, a specialized agentic-based tool aims to draft scientific content while promising to slash the time and effort required to produce first…

The pandemic, the rise of decentralized trials and a wave of technological advances have each played a role in reshaping clinical trials and safety reporting. While these events have been changing the industry, the internet’s growing convenience and accessibility has also empowered and transformed the patient experience. Patients are increasingly turning to online platforms, particularly…

As pharma giants like Darmstadt, Germany–based Merck KGaA announce new pacts with AI companies, the drug development landscape is witnessing a familiar pattern of emerging tech adoption. AI’s promise of faster, more efficient drug discovery has captured the industry’s imagination, leading Big Pharma to ramp up investment in AI startups and partnerships. Yet, the technology’s…

In this age of rapidly evolving technologies that fundamentally shift the way businesses operate, such as large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP), organizations are quickly realizing that success extends beyond innovative technology solutions alone. While these technologies offer immense potential in terms of innovation, data insights and operational efficiency gains, constraints exist…

As machine learning and deep learning technologies advance thanks to advances in computation, algorithms and data availability, the possibilities of the technology continue to expand in medicine. While these AI-driven approaches have real potential, such systems demand large volumes of representative data, careful privacy and security scrutiny and thoughtful long-term strategic planning. In this Q&A, Kathryn…

Only 12% of new drug candidates that enter phase 1 clinical development ultimately receive FDA approval. This dismal success rate leaves millions of patients with unmet medical needs and drives up the costs for the small number of drugs that make it to market. More frustratingly, it leaves untold numbers of potentially transformative therapies back-burnered…

In an AI hype-filled biopharma industry, one company is taking a back-to-basics yet supercomputer-powered approach — using Bayesian analysis on massive patient datasets to guide drug discovery. The company crunches trillions of data points per patient. “It’s massive, which is why we use a supercomputer,” said Niven R. Narain, Ph.D., BPGbio CEO. The company has…

Repurposing is a drug development strategy that has been widely applied in cancer. This strategy, sometimes called label expansion, involves obtaining FDA approval to market a drug for the treatment of new indications, alone or in combination with other drugs. Not only can this approach extend the window of patent protection for a commercialized drug,…

Two out of three pharma companies (67%) plan to ramp up investment in IT, including AI, over the next 12 months, according to a survey from the cloud vendor Rackspace Technology and Dell/VMware conducted in October 2023. About the same amount, 68%, reported challenges in recruiting and hiring talent skilled in cloud and AI technology.…

In a year or two, the clinical trial industry may move beyond electronic data capture (EDC), a technology that has been the cornerstone of clinical data management for decades, projects Raj Indupuri, CEO of eClinical Solutions. Given the potential of electronic medical records (EMR) to feed directly into data infrastructure, the need for EDC may…

In the midst of a global pandemic, Pfizer, under the leadership of its chief digital and technology officer Lidia Fonseca, achieved what was once thought impossible. The company, with the partnership of BioNTech, developed a COVID-19 vaccine in only 269 days, a process that traditionally would have taken 8 to 10 years. While prior research…

The entry of AI into healthcare is starkly different from the accepted adage of “move fast and break things” in consumerism. In episode 1 of AI Meets Life Sci, Kayleen Brown, managing editor at DeviceTalks, and Brian Buntz, pharma and biotech editor, discuss the opportunities, limitations, and direct impact of Ai in healthcare fields including…

As the year draws to a close, it is clear that molecular science and diagnostics is the hottest funding area in the biotech industry. In an analysis of 50 of the best-funded biotechs of 2023 focused on human health, molecular and science and diagnostics startups collectively attracting roughly $945 million, dwarfing the figures in other…

In recent years, the term “data lakehouse” has entered the lexicon of data professionals. For AI-enabled clinical trials, the lakehouse architecture promises seamless integration of diverse data streams, spanning patient health records to real-time sensor data, all processed efficiently and queried in structured formats. The lakehouse architecture aims to provide a comprehensive overview of data,…

The White House has released an executive order that contains what it hails as “the most sweeping actions ever taken to protect Americans from the potential risks of AI systems.” Relevant to drug development, a fact sheet on the order describes its aim to help further “the responsible use of AI in healthcare and the…

The potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to reshape drug discovery and development is immense. From expediting learning and driving discoveries to managing large-scale data sets and generating fresh insights, the true scale of AI’s influence on the industry is only starting to be understood. But with great potential comes great responsibility.…

Amid a backdrop of recent RSV vaccine approvals, GSK and Pfizer find themselves locked in a legal spat over alleged patent infringements. Both Big Pharma giants now possess the FDA’s blessing for their respective respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines. Pfizer’s recent win came with the second approval for its Abrysvo vaccine, which the company now…

AI algorithms offer a myriad of advantages for clinical trials. AI techniques can, for instance, support patient enrollment and site selection, improve data quality and enhance patient outcomes. AI algorithms — combined with an effective digital infrastructure — can also help aggregate and manage clinical trial data in real time, as Deloitte has noted. Last…

Top pharmaceutical companies sponsor over a hundred clinical trials annually, generating vast amounts of data. Harnessing this deluge is a monumental task. eClinical Solutions, led by CEO Raj Indupuri, tackles this through advanced applications of data analytics and machine learning with an emphasis on AI in clinical trials optimization. Specifically, eClinical Solutions taps AI/ML for…

Thanks to automation in pharmacovigilance, the next generation of safety is here — and with it, there is an immense opportunity for firms that can change how they work and maximize the opportunity automation creates. Leading safety teams are seeing up to 80% efficiency gains on key workflows by investing in touchless case processing, automating…

Minneapolis-based Flywheel has received $54 million in a Series D round backed by NVIDIA, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and other strategic investors. Flywheel will invest the cash to fuel growth in core verticals, the pharmaceutical and public sector healthcare sectors. A notable Big Pharma customer is Genentech. The company also aims to ramp up expansion…

The meteoric rise of the AI sector is hard to fathom. Projections from Precedence Research suggest that the global AI market could balloon by 2600% from 2022 to 2032, hitting $1.87 trillion — an annual growth rate of 39%. In pharma, AI and data science demand is surging though overall growth is sluggish. Despite advances…

The fact that the biopharmaceutical industry has a large carbon footprint is well established. A 2022 study from My Green Lab confirmed that biotech and pharma are still among the globe’s top polluters. The research highlights that a mere 4% of the largest publicly-traded biotech and pharmaceutical firms have climate commitments in line with the…