Business Lab

The last five years have seen large innovations throughout drug development and clinical trial life cycles—from finding a target and designing the trial, to getting a drug approved and launching the drug itself. The recent use of mRNA vaccines to combat covid-19 is just one of many advances in biotech and drug development. Whether in preclinical stages or in the commercialization of a drug, AI-enabled drug development is now used by an estimated 400 companies and has reached a $50 billion market, placing AI more firmly in the life sciences mainstream. “Now, if you look at the parallel movements that are happening in technology, everyone’s in consensus that the utility of what AI can do in drug development is becoming more evident,” says senior vice president at Medidata AI, Arnaub Chatterjee. The pandemic has shown how critical and fraught the race can be to provide new treatments to patients, positioning the pharmaceutical industry at an inflection point, says Chatterjee. And that’s because drug developm