A Molecule Designed By AI Exhibits 'Druglike' Qualities

Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine, a startup that generates potential drugs using artificial intelligence, was recently given a challenge by one of his pharma company partners. His team would see how quickly Insilico's AI could identify new molecules that bind with a protein associated with tissue scarring. Then they'd put the molecules to the test, synthesizing a few of them in the lab to see if the AI was onto something, or only dreaming. It now costs $2.6 billion, by one estimate, to get a new drug to market, and pipelines are only getting slower and more expensive. There's hope--and hype--that AI could help chip away at that figure by reducing the time and labor before a drug starts clinical trials.