How artificial intelligence is changing drug discovery

An enormous figure looms over scientists searching for new drugs: the estimated US$2.6-billion price tag of developing a treatment. A lot of that effectively goes down the drain, because it includes money spent on the nine out of ten candidate therapies that fail somewhere between phase I trials and regulatory approval. Few people in the field doubt the need to do things differently. Leading biopharmaceutical companies believe a solution is at hand. Pfizer is using IBM Watson, a system that uses machine learning, to power its search for immuno-oncology drugs.