Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies have been reshaping organizations around the world. One sector that is embracing the benefits of these solutions is the pharmaceutical industry.
For decades, researching and developing (R&D) new medications has been an incredibly expensive, tedious, and time-consuming endeavor, but AI has shown the potential to revolutionize the way that researchers develop leading-edge drugs. It can also reduce drug discovery costs by up to 70%, according to Insider Intelligence.
Some companies are already leveraging AI to design medicines and decrease discovery expenses. Below we explore what they are doing and how it’s going.
How AI Is Reshaping Pharmaceutical Development
During the R&D phase of medicine development, researchers encounter no shortage of challenges. The most notable of these often involves identifying chemical compounds that have the potential to treat medical ailments.
Traditionally, researchers must review past studies or formulate their own to identify viable molecules, but both approaches are labor- and research-intensive. With AI, though, companies can significantly expedite the process, thereby saving countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollards in research costs.
There is one problem to point out, however: AI models often recommend compounds that are either impossible or incredibly difficult to produce with current technologies.
How Researchers Are Overcoming Their Synthesization Challenges
Recently, MIT researchers have restricted models to prevent them from suggesting molecular structures that are impossible to create. It is an approach that enables researchers to tap into the benefits of AI-based medicine design while further accelerating the molecule discovery process.
MIT is not the only entity that is harnessing the power of AI-designed medicine. Exscientia, an innovative pharmatech company, developed an immuno-oncology medicine using AI. It was one of the first AI-designed medicine to enter the clinical trial phase of R&D. These trials began in 2021, but the medicine has not yet received final approval from the FDA.
MIT, Exscientia, and other visionary companies will undoubtedly continue to push the limits of AI technologies in the pharmacological research space. Ultimately, these endeavors could and should lead to the development of safer, more effective medicines to treat humankind’s most prevalent medical ailments.
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