Pharma leaders say AI is a co-pilot in drug development, not a cure-all
Executives at Vertex, AstraZeneca, Regeneron and Bayer are pushing back on claims that AI will cure most diseases within a decade. Vertex says about 50 AI firms analysed its 10,000-compound dataset and none produced an effective drug. Investment in AI drug discovery reached $8.4 billion in 2025, according to McKinsey, yet no fully AI-designed drug has FDA approval. About a quarter of late-stage trial failures come from safety problems such as off-target effects, which current models predict poorly. The executives see AI's value in faster screening, data analysis and trial recruitment, with human scientists still validating the biology.
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