Biotech companies and drugmakers are shelving their AI-designed therapeutics after a series of clinical setbacks, Endpoints News reported Oct. 19.
In 2020, U.K.-based Exscientia and its partner, Japan-based Sumitomo Pharma, announced the first AI-created drug would enter a phase 1 trial for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Two years later, Sumitomo ended the research because the drug failed to meet study criteria.
In the last three and a half years, two other companies have started and ended clinical trials for drug candidates made by AI, according to Endpoints News. A bandwagon of AI hype formed when the research was made public, but the trend seems to be turning into a fad after the three companies worked for about a decade to research and develop these therapies.
In the biotech industry, only about 5% to 10% of medications tested in human trials make it to the market. The fanfare for AI-fashioned drugs couldn't make this low statistic budge.
"If you take the hype and PR at face value over the last 10 years, you would think it goes from 5% to 90%," Patrick Malone, MD, PhD, a principal at science investment firm KdT Ventures, told Endpoints News. "But if you know how these models work, it goes from 5% to maybe 6% or 7%."