The recent surge in activity in deploying AI capabilities in pharmaceutical R&D shows no sign of abating, with ‘big pharma’ investing significant capital in streamlining or accelerating the drug discovery process and applying AI methods to identifying new targets and medicines. If AI delivers on its promise, then there will be a material increase in the rate of new medicines coming to market. This could lead to a corresponding up-tick in the demands on manufacturing. Running in parallel is the question of how the same technologies can be applied to increase efficiency and improve outcomes in manufacturing as well as how AI technology might help improve efficiencies within these businesses.
AI meets ‘big pharma’
Major pharmaceutical companies are data-rich and expert at developing new medicines starting from an implicated gene, protein, process or pathogen. They have powerful computational tools at their disposal and are early adopters of new technology. The leading AI companies have developed tools capable of analysing vast data sets, including natural language documents. The convergence of the two means that the deployment of leading-edge AI to pharmaceutical R&D is accelerating.
Poolbeg Pharma plc (LON:POLB) is a clinical stage infectious disease pharmaceutical company, with a novel capital light clinical model which enables us to develop multiple products faster and more cost effectively than the traditional biotech model.