AI in drug development – Expanding the option space

In the expensive and failure-prone process of drug development, artificial intelligence (AI) can serve both as an efficiency tool and as a creativity tool. Increased efficiency means shorter timelines, reduced investment, and earlier insights into success or failure. This can lead to more opportunities to bring new drugs to patients. Increased creativity means exploring new areas in drug discovery and development, such as identifying new patterns in targets, drug molecules, and patient populations that may be unintelligible to the human eye. While we are witnessing the first tangible milestones of AI in drug development, the hype in the field can lead to inflated expectations of its benefits. To assess the true potential of the technology, we must also recognize its challenges, such as the algorithms' "black box" nature, their propensity for hallucination, and data bias. Only by being transparent about both the potential and the limitations of AI can we increase the trust of drug developers—and most importantly, our customers: patients. Listen to episode 27 of We’re Doomed, We’re Saved to learn more about the potential of AI for pharma and biotech. Content and Editing: Louise von Stechow and Andreas Horchler Disclaimer: Louise von Stechow & Andreas Horchler and their guests express their personal opinions, which are founded on research on the respective topics, but do not claim to give medical, investment or even life advice in the podcast. Learn more about the future of biotech in our podcasts and keynotes. Contact us here: scientific communication: https://science-tales.com/ Podcasts: https://www.podcon.de/ Keynotes: https://www.zukunftsinstitut.de/louise-von-stechow Image: ej-strat-VjWi56AWQ9k-unsplashvia Unsplash References: 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02361-0 2. https://www.wired.com/2016/03/two-moves-alphago-lee-sedol-redefined-future/ 3. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02896-9 4. https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-024-00084-w 5. https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-024-00084-w 6. https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-024-00084-w 7. https://endpts.com/the-endpoints-slack-interview-siddhartha-mukherjee-on-the-doctor-writer-worldview-ai-and-the-future-of-cancer/ 8. https://endpts.com/the-endpoints-slack-interview-siddhartha-mukherjee-on-the-doctor-writer-worldview-ai-and-the-future-of-cancer/ 9. https://hbr.org/2024/05/ais-trust-problem