Pharma innovation

Empress Therapeutics, which exited stealth mode a year ago, has already discovered 15 drug leads across multiple diseases and target classes. Launched in 2020, the Flagship Pioneering startup is now driving towards filing multiple IND applications within the next 24 months. While AI has played a role in compressing those timelines, the company is focusing…

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…

Pharma’s potential breakthroughs in AI, ADCs, and GLP-1 receptor agonists raise a critical question: can innovation outpace the relentless rise of chronic disease? The IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science sheds light on this theme, among many others, in its 80-page Global Trends in R&D 2024 report. Pillar 1: GLP-1 receptor agonists targeting metabolic disease…

Since the early 2000s, pundits have lamented that there is an innovation crisis in the pharmaceutical industry. One of the most common reasons given is the challenge of bringing new drugs to market. The U.S. Government Accounting Office concluded in 2006 that the “productivity of [the pharma industry’s] research and development expenditures has been declining.”…

Is it possible that pharmaceutical innovation has accelerated over the past two decades — with the novelty of small molecule and peptide drugs steadily increasing? That’s the conclusion suggested by a recent study published in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, which found roughly 65% of FDA-approved drugs in 2020 were structurally novel. Last year’s drug approvals…