AI is transforming drug design — but humans remain key to patentability

Imogen Ireland, life sciences IP associate for law firm Hogan Lovells, raises some important issues relating to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that drugmakers may not have fully considered, in an Expert View piece.

Drug discovery lies at the heart of the pharmaceutical industry’s operations. The process can take 10 to 15 years and billions of dollars to complete.

AI, however, is promising to cut the time and costs of generating a hit to candidate, from around five years to one or less.