DIGITAL HEALTHCARE
Q. LOOKING AHEAD, HOW FUNDAMENTALLY COULD AI RESHAPE PHARMACEUTICAL R & D AND THE KINDS OF DISEASES THE INDUSTRY IS ABLE TO TARGET?
» I believe AI has the potential to transform pharmaceutical R & D more than any technology we have seen in decades.
In the near term, we will see faster and more efficient research processes. But the longer-term impact is truly exciting – pursuing biological targets that were previously considered too complex, identifying new patient populations for existing therapies, and dramatically improving our understanding of disease mechanisms.
As those capabilities mature, AI will move from being a tool that supports R & D to becoming a core component of how new medicines are discovered, developed and validated. Ultimately, that could enable the industry to make progress fighting diseases that have historically proved difficult to address, including complex neurological disorders, rare diseases and highly heterogeneous cancers, improving outcomes for patients around the world.
Fundamentally, AI is rewriting how we approach the assessment of targets and what is technically feasible in terms of what diseases we can treat. There are some highly ambitious targets here such as claims to target solving all disease. That remains to be seen, but the move toward disease and modality agnostic AI platforms creates an opportunity not previously seen in life sciences.
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