AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said artificial intelligence is helping drugmakers develop drugs faster and make smarter decisions throughout the research process.
“The value of AI in our industry is improving productivity,” Soriot said on CNBC's “Mad Money” on Friday. “The way you design a new medicine, a new drug, you can actually do it faster and smarter.”
The comments come as investors increasingly question whether massive spending on artificial intelligence is producing significant returns in industries such as healthcare. Soriot said AstraZeneca is already seeing practical applications in drug discovery and development, from identifying new targets to improving the design of potential drugs.
“You can find new targets, but you can also optimize your molecule [and] eliminate what you think will be possible side effects of the molecule, and AI helps you do that,” he said.
Soriot noted that AI is also helping the company make better decisions about which drugs to advance in the development process. Through its partnership with Tempus AI, he said the company is using AI models to analyze data with the goal of improving drug discovery and increasing the odds of success in late-stage trials.
“We have developed an agent that brings together all this data (clinical data, laboratory data) and helps us predict the probability of success of a phase 3 trial,” Soriot said.
The potential reward is significant.
“We spent $300 million, $400 million, $500 million on a trial,” Soriot said. “If you increase the probability of success, the productivity improvement is huge.”
