Withers & Rogers gives an insight into the new ways that AI is helping to accelerate drug discovery and highlights the challenges that exist when bringing such innovations to market.
The use of AI and machine learning in speeding up drug discovery is widely understood, but it is becoming clear that it is capable of so much more. Ultimately, it could help to pave the way to a new era of personalised medicine.
Due to their ability to crunch large datasets and identify patterns that could indicate the efficacy of a specific drug or therapy in treating a known human condition, AI technologies are commonly used in exploratory research activity. One area where they have proved especially valuable to date is drug discovery; particularly repurposing existing drugs for the treatment of a specific disease. For example, AI systems can be used to analyse research data from multiple sources, such as clinical trial and patient data, in order to determine if a specific drug molecule will bind to other targets. This could indicate their usefulness in the treatment of a new patient group.