AI-created drugs fall off hype cycle

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%."

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