back to article Megacorp GSK inks AI drug development deal with Brit firm

GlaxoSmithKline has announced a research deal with British company Exscientia to use artificial intelligence to identify drug targets. The deal will see GSK fund Exscientia’s research into AI-driven drug discovery, paying out up to £33m if it hits all its targets. GSK has tasked the firm with identifying molecules that have …

  1. NorthernCoder
    Joke

    I, for one, welcome our new AI drug overlords.

  2. HCL

    AI for Drug Discovery

    Good approach. This is the way forward for future.

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Remeber all those reports about AI taking white collar jobs.....

    Guess what this..

    Needless to say any reduction in the costs of developing a new drug (which given the approximate 4x increase in the speed of the process should be substantial) won't be passed on to the customers.

    1. DocJames
      Coat

      Re: Remeber all those reports about AI taking white collar jobs.....

      Drug costs are not related to the cost of development; they are related to what the company think the market will bear.

      See: Gilead's hepatitis C drugs, which are awesome (ie cure the disease in 12 weeks most of the time). The price they've been set at reflects the costs of a liver transplant. This is ~10^3 times the cost of manufacture... luckily we (thanks to the US Senate) have their internal documents discussing what price to set, and R+D costs don't feature there at all.

      Icon: I always think it looks like someone rifling through someone else's coat pockets

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