Dr. Tom Mather: De-risking Drug Development with AI

In this episode of Breaking Protocol, Tilda Research CEO Ram Yalamanchili sits down with Dr. Tom Mather — Chief Medical Officer of a clinical-stage biotech, early-stage venture investor, and marathoner — to unpack the real bottlenecks in drug development.From seed-stage funding to Phase III trials, Tom shares a rare perspective of clinician + operator + investor.They discuss:• Why venture capital hasn’t disappeared but is demanding de-risking• The growing gap between discovery and clinical execution• Why clinical trials remain the largest financial and operational bottleneck• How machine learning can improve early data, trial design, and protocol development• What happens when AI enables more molecules than the system can handle• Why Tom rejects the term “artificial” intelligenceIf AI accelerates discovery, but clinical infrastructure stays manual and siloed, the bottleneck only shifts downstream.This conversation explores what that future could look like.