Google Cloud’s Shweta Maniar is on a mission to revamp drug discovery with the power of generative AI, the trendy type of AI that can create new content. The tech is well-suited for a range of applications in drug discovery and across the life sciences. Whether it’s supporting organizations in their drug discovery efforts or…
6 signs AI momentum in drug discovery is building
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…
SciBite Chat: Elsevier’s answer to ChatGPT for life science researchers, minus the hallucinations
The life sciences industry is abuzz with the potential of generative AI, but its application in the highly regulated pharmaceutical sector faces challenges. As Jane Lomax, Ph.D., head of ontologies at Elsevier’s SciBite subsidiary notes, “Everyone across the whole industry is experimenting with it. But no one knows for sure yet how best to use…
Longevity biotech gaining momentum as demographic shifts drive demand for healthy aging
Is aging a disease or a natural process? That question has emerged as a point of debate among researchers, medical professionals and philosophers. Some, like biogerontologist David Gems, argue that lines between aging and disease are frequently blurry, and that intervening in the aging process “protects against the totality of age-related diseases.” Other researchers such…
The $5-7B generative AI opportunity biopharma can’t afford to ignore
Yes, generative AI is hyped. And yes, the technology has shortcomings. But the landscape is swiftly changing. Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that the GenAI market would grow from $40 billion in 2022 to $1.3 trillion by 2032. A recent study from Deloitte Consulting estimates that for a top 10 biopharma company with $65-75 billion in revenue,…
Unlearn CEO: Digital twins could slash clinical trial patient enrollment by 25% or more
The startup Unlearn embodies several trendy AI characteristics. Generative AI company? Check. San Francisco headquarters? Check. Aims to disrupt drug development (specifically, clinical trials) with AI? Check. Prominent AI leadership? Check. Mira Murati, the high-profile CTO of OpenAI, joined Unlearn’s board of directors in 2023. But the company’s pedigree is unique. The firm was founded…
NVIDIA exec on how ‘NIMs’ can help biopharma navigate the challenges of deploying generative AI
The buzz surrounding generative AI may be undeniable, but its real-world impact on heavily-regulated sectors like drug discovery continues to evolve. Consequently, most drug candidates, circa 90%, continue to fail. Kimberly Powell, vice president of Healthcare at NVIDIA, believes that a new microservices-based offering known as NIMs (NVIDIA Inference Microservices) could help pharma firms navigate…
Denmark teams up with Novo Nordisk Foundation, NVIDIA to launch visionary AI research center
A collaboration between the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), and NVIDIA will establish a national AI Innovation Centre in Denmark focused on accelerating research and innovation in fields including healthcare, life science, and quantum computing. The initiative is led on the Danish side by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, which…
Iambic Therapeutics and NVIDIA partner to slash cancer drug development timelines
Using generative AI in drug discovery, Iambic Therapeutics (formerly Entos) has advanced its IAM1363 drug candidate from program launch to clinical studies in fewer than 24 months — a process that often takes several years. Iambic Therapeutics’ AI drug development milestone relied on an alliance with NVIDIA researchers and engineers and through the use of…
ConcertAI acquisition will boost CancerLinQ data capabilities with AI focus
The AI oncology startup ConcertAI recently acquired CancerLinQ, one of the largest oncology real-world data and quality of care technology service entities. Originally developed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in 2013, CancerLinQ aims to use real-world data and technology to improve cancer care and advance evidence-based research. CancerLinQ has developed one of…
Unlocking generative AI requires reshaping culture, operations, and talent dynamics
In drug discovery and development, generative AI and natural-language processing (NLP) tools promise more than incremental productivity gains. For companies that can integrate such tools strategically into their workflows, the tools open the door to a fundamental rethinking of operational processes. For instance, generative AI tools can accelerate drafting of research articles, novel target identification,…
EDC fading in prominence as AI and cloud gain ground
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…
AWS-NVIDIA gen-AI alliance epitomizes Big Tech’s growing interest in drug discovery
The allure of healthcare has long captivated Big Tech giants. Over the past fifteen years or so, several prominent companies in the sector have ventured into the life sciences sector with ambitious projects, only to often find themselves retreating. The dynamic appears to be changing, particularly in drug discovery, thanks in part to burgeoning data…
50 of the best-funded biotechs of 2023
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…
Nvidia-Genentech AI drug discovery alliance unites computing brawn with biological brains
Technically, graphics processing and AI hardware powerhouse Nvidia is also a drug discovery company. It may not discover drugs in-house, but it has developed BioNeMo, a comprehensive generative AI platform for drug discovery and Clara, a collection of healthcare frameworks, applications, and tools, including for biopharma. Nvidia partners include Amgen, AstraZeneca, GSK and Insilico Medicine.…
Insilico Medicine taps AI to nominate small molecule inhibitor ISM9274 as a preclinical cancer therapy
Clinical-stage AI company Insilico Medicine has nominated a novel small molecule inhibitor known as ISM9274 as a preclinical candidate for cancer treatment. The company used its PandaOmics AI platform to analyze genomic data from more than 90 tumor types and identified CDK12 as a promising target for multiple cancers including triple-negative breast cancer, lung cancer,…
Balancing on a tightrope, pharma’s generative AI journey straddles fear and FOMO
Pharma and biotech companies have had a spectrum of responses to the surge in generative artificial intelligence (AI). A recent Washington Post article describes an unnamed biotech firm that banned employees from using OpenAI’s ChatGPT despite its capability to bolster productivity given concerns over potential data leaks. At the same time, the burgeoning AI landscape…
Eversana partners with AWS to accelerate generative AI in pharma
Life sciences commercial services company Eversana is one of the latest to throw its hat into the generative AI ring. Tapping a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Everasana is focusing on developing generative AI technologies in the pharmaceutical industry. Also this month, the startup Synthetica Bio announced it would use generative AI to boost…
Synthetica Bio lates to tap generative AI to spur drug discovery innovation
Interest in generative AI has skyrocketed in 2023. While the generative AI market is already substantial, worth $10 billion in 2022 according to Grand View Research, it is set to balloon by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35.6% from 2023 to 2030. It’s no wonder that a slew of companies — including Exscientia,…
Raising the efficiency floor and innovation ceiling with generative AI in drug discovery
Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT promise advances that extend beyond capturing public interest. Because transformer models like GPT have an architecture that supports the understanding of language in context, they point to an array of novel possibilities for scientific research. “The transformer architecture is critical,” according to Michael Connell, the chief operating officer…
A deep dive into AWS’s strategy with generative AI and ML in life sciences
The AI market is witnessing meteoric growth, with projections hinting at a potentially staggering increase over the next decade. Against this backdrop of rapid AI evolution, we recently spoke with Tehsin Syed, general manager of AWS Health. Syed shared that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is seeing growing interest from Big Pharma firms. “Nine of the…
Generative AI could boost biopharma R&D productivity by billions, according to McKinsey
Generative AI stands to add trillions of dollars of value to the world economy, according to a recent McKinsey report. The consultancy noted that about three-quarters of the value of generative AI spans four areas — customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering and R&D. The latter could see a 12% annual lift in global…
UBS: Generative AI is no silver bullet for drug discovery
Imagine a world where the process of developing life-saving drugs is as streamlined as a modern assembly line. In such a reality, generative AI in drug discovery might churn out promising compounds with similar efficiency and precision as a factory robot assembling a car. Moreover, such technology could chip away at the steep cost and…
Navigating generative AI in drug discovery and data analysis: Seizing the opportunity and avoiding pitfalls
Along with predictive AI, generative AI is emerging as a promising tool in drug discovery. Thanks in part to the rise of ChatGPT, interest in the technology in drug discovery is on the upswing. In March, a preprint appeared examining the potential to use generative AI to enable de novo antibody design. Also this year,…
The ‘Iron man suit’ for QA Managers: Quality management software taps power of ChatGPT
Gone are the days when Microsoft’s animated paperclip, Clippy, popped up on your screen with helpful — and sometimes annoying — tips and tricks for your Word document. Now, the Israeli eQMS compliance provider Dot Compliance has launched what it hails as an industry-first electronic Quality Management System (eQMS) for life sciences with a prominent…