The Food and Drug Administration has been meeting with OpenAI to discuss the agency's use of AI, according to sources with knowledge of the meetings. The meetings appear to be part of a broader effort at the FDA to use this technology to speed up the drug approval process. "Why does it take over 10 years for a new drug to come to market?" "Why are we not modernized with AI and other things? We've just completed our first AI-assisted scientific review for a product and that's just the beginning."

A division within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) has currently seven RPA (Robotic Process Automation) projects in development as it works to free up staff for its core science mission. The center has used RPA for a year with plans to implement bots to Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) for applications in regulatory review. CDER ensures safe and effective drugs on the market to improve the health of the people throughout their lifecycle. While the FDA is recognized in the RPA space for automating drug intake forms and work within its chief financial officer's office, CDER has quietly put several RPA use cases into production enterprise-wide. It regulates over-the-counter and prescription drugs, including biological therapeutics and generic drugs.