So far, the pharmaceutical industry has contributed more to the well-being of humanity than any other industry. But lately its business model has been under significant pressure since the return on R&D investment has dropped to its lowest level in decades (lack of innovation amid digital disruption, rapid technological advances and other issues such as lack of data reproducibility) and its public reputation in US and around the world (anti vaccine movement in Europe) is worse than ever. This worrisome mix of little growth potential and low reputation is the main reason why investors are increasingly worried, not to mention that the current drug development process needs a big dose of digital innovation to deal with its messy data. As a matter of fact, Stefan Oelrich member of the Board Management of Bayer AG, President Pharmaceuticals, wrote in an article -- that the title perfectly summarises the AI pharma situation "Artificial Intelligence - When we Suddenly Know What we Don't Know" -- the following: "As we open the first doors in this unknown land we start to discover how much more is out there for our entire pharmaceutical value chain spanning from research to product supply. I expect AI to help us know what we have not known so far. Artificial Intelligence will become instrumental in our search for new medicines to better serve patients around the world as we leverage Science For A Better Life".

A projected timeline for treatment and prevention of the novel coronavirus. Although we are living ... [ ] through uncertain times, we are also witnessing one of the greatest moments in science history. Scientists are breaking speed records in their race to develop treatments for the new coronavirus. Some are panning through old molecules hoping to find effective drugs. Others are applying the latest breakthroughs in synthetic biology to engineer sophisticated treatments and vaccines.

The growing demand for ML/AI technologies, as well as for ML/AI talent, in the pharmaceutical industry is driving the formation of a new interdisciplinary field: data-driven drug discovery/healthcare. Consequently, there is a growing number of AI driven startups offering technology solutions for drug discovery/development. In drug development, preclinical phase (in vitro and in vivo), also named preclinical studies and nonclinical studies, is a stage of research that begins before clinical trials, and during which important feasibility, iterative testing and drug safety data are collected. According to a detailed mind-map prepared by Pharma Division of Deep Knowledge Analytics (updated Q1 2019): the AI for Drug Discovery, Biomarker Development and Advanced R&D Industry Landscape counts so far 400 investors, 170 companies and 50 corporations. This article focuses only on the AI startups and the AI investors trying to overcome the above 4 challenges during design and execution of the preclinical phase.