The Future of Medicine 💊: AI-Driven Drug Discovery And Development 🧪 in India 🇮🇳 & The World 🌏

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear Reader, the global AI in pharmaceutical market size was valued at USD 908Mn in 2022 and is expected to hit over USD 11.8Bn by 2032 with a registered CAGR of 29.30% from 2023 to 2032¹.

Integration of AI in the pharma industry is fundamentally altering the global playing field, where previously innovations were concentrated in the hands of a few due to the high cost of drug discovery and development, coupled with stringent regulatory barriers.

Today, the democratizing force of AI is lowering entry barriers and enabling more players to participate in the innovation process. India, which has historically been the global powerhouse of generic drug manufacturing, is capitalizing on this opportunity to achieve an ambitious target of $130 billion by 2030, almost a 3x jump from the current $50 billion landscape².

Against this backdrop, in this newsletter, we will explore the impact of AI on the pharma sector.

In Today’s Newsletter:

• AI Pills: Powering Drug Discovery with Peptris Technologies

• Moderna, OpenAI partner to fasten the development of life-saving treatments

• The AI Cure: Accelerating Drug Discovery & Development

• Latest AI Job Opportunities in India

• Latest AI News from Around the World

TOP NEWS
Peptris AI Injects Speed into Drug Discovery

Peptris Technologies, an AI-driven drug discovery company, has received $1 million in pre-seed funding to develop faster, cheaper drugs, particularly for oncology, inflammation, and rare diseases.

Why is it relevant?
This investment could make medicine more affordable and accessible, especially for people with rare diseases who often have limited treatment options. Read More

TOP NEWS
Moderna's AI Makeover Promises Fast-Track Pharma

Moderna partners with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its operations, to boost productivity and enhance new medicine development by leveraging AI at least 20 times daily. 

Why is it relevant?
This partnership highlights the growing intersection of AI and healthcare, promising faster medical innovations and potentially groundbreaking treatments for viruses and cancers. The collaboration seeks to launch 15 new products in five years paving the way for a transformative era in healthcare innovation. Read More

NANOBITS RESEARCH
AI Aspirin: Turbocharges Pharma's Race to Innovate

Drug discovery is a notoriously slow process; it often takes 15 years to bring a medicine from concept to market. This highlights a critical need for innovations and emerging technologies like AI to accelerate and streamline the process from drug discovery to distribution.

EY India’s Gen AI report has projected that GenAI could contribute USD 4-5 billion to the gross value added (GVA) by 2030. Indian pharmaceutical companies are increasingly exploring LLMs and GenAI applications in R&D, aiming at more targeted therapies and operational efficiencies, in the drug development processes.

In this segment, we explore some AI innovations that are revolutionizing the pharma industry:

1. India-based AI firm, Intuition Systems partners with Lantern Pharma, a precision oncology company to enhance drug development using AI and big data for faster, targeted cancer therapies. Read More

2. Indegene, a healthcare IT company, uses AI and machine learning to help clients cut costs and improve drug safety through pharmacovigilance (drug safety monitoring). Read More

3. Innoplexus, HQ-ed in Frankfurt with an office in Pune, uses AI for real-time data analysis, drug safety enhancements, and targeted treatment development.

4. MoonViz, developed by KnowDis, uses GenAI to accelerate drug discovery and protein design, providing a collaborative and user-friendly interface for biologists, chemists, and AI researchers. Read More

5. The AI model SyntheMol, developed by researchers from Stanford Medicine and McMaster University, has designed six new drugs targeting antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. Read More

6. Century Health, now backed with $2M in pre-seed funding, uses AI to improve pharma companies' access to quality patient data for faster drug development, particularly for diseases like Alzheimer's. Read More

7. AlphaFold, an AI developed by Google's DeepMind, is revolutionizing drug discovery by predicting protein structures - the key to understanding protein function and designing new drugs. Read More

A survey by OPPI-EY found high costs, long timelines, and a high chance of failure to be the biggest barriers to innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ecosystem Support in the Pharma Industry:

1. The Indian government's PRIP scheme, part of its vision to expand the pharma industry to $130 billion by 2030, allocates INR 5,000 crore over five years to enhance R&D and innovation in high-priority PharmaMedTech sectors, fostering a supportive ecosystem for research.

2. Chipmaker Nvidia is making a big splash in drug discovery with a $50 million investment in Recursion and the creation of BioNeMo, a GenAI cloud service tailored for drug development. Read More

3. The Telangana Govt. plans to increase the pharmaceutical sector's value to $250 billion by 2030, create 400,000 new jobs, and establish Hyderabad as the core of Asia's life sciences sector. The city hosts over 214 USFDA-approved facilities and four of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies. Read More

AI in drug discovery offers faster, cheaper development, but challenges like ethical usage, data bias, and IP security risks require ethical considerations and cybersecurity investments.

India, with strong IT capabilities and supportive government policies, can lead in transforming its pharmaceutical sector from volume-driven to research-focused, leveraging AI to enhance drug development and clinical trials, and driving innovation for sustainable growth.

AI JOB OPPORTUNITIES

• TCS - Python Gen AI Developer

• Pepsico - Deputy Director - Product Design

• EXL - Gen AI R&D

• Kla Tencor - Algorithm Engineer (ML / AI)

• Philips - Data Scientist

Click here to browse more AI jobs in India

LATEST NEWS IN AI

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A report by Kantar reveals 90% of Indian internet users utilize AI, with growth projected at 6% annually; usage is higher among young adults but also prevalent in older demographics

Synthesia introduces expressive AI video avatars, aiming for more natural emotions and movements in generated videos, targeting the business market for training and marketing

Healthify, an Indian startup, enhances health management with OpenAI's GPTs, improving nutrition analysis and coaching, aiming to impact a billion lives globally through AI-driven solutions

TOMORROW’S SPECIAL EDITION