Amazon Pharmacy and One Medical have joined forces in an innovative healthcare partnership, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize drug discovery. This collaboration aims to streamline the drug development process by using AI to detect potential failures much earlier, significantly reducing costs associated with unsuccessful drug candidates. Recursion CEO, Chris Gibson, highlights the pivotal role of AI in making failure more affordable at the early stages, allowing scientists to explore broader possibilities. This partnership also introduces the Phenom series, an AI foundation model hosted on Nvidia’s BioNeMo platform, enabling faster drug discovery. The goal is to share knowledge and enhance the broader industry’s capabilities. Gibson envisions AI reducing drug development costs dramatically within the next 10 to 15 years.
Recursion’s advanced foundation models, such as Phenom-1, showcase the company’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI in drug discovery. The company also introduces LOWE, a natural language interface designed to perform complex drug discovery tasks, emphasizing the integration of AI across various stages of the drug development pipeline. The collaboration includes the release of Phenom-Beta, a model processing cellular microscopy images for external use, underscoring Recursion’s commitment to advancing AI in healthcare.
Gibson envisions AI playing a significant role in transforming clinical trials, making them more cost-effective by picking targets based on extensive systems biology data. The goal is to design trials that are ten times less expensive, with a focus on synthetic control arms. Recursion’s collaboration with Tempus further exemplifies its commitment to leveraging patient data for novel cancer target identification, creating virtuous cycles of learning and iteration in drug development.
Despite the challenging capital markets climate, Gibson expresses confidence in Recursion’s bold bets and acquisitions, emphasizing the company’s commitment to contributing valuable data for advancing AI in biopharma. In the face of potential cost savings from AI-driven clinical trials, Gibson asserts that if traditional pharmaceutical companies choose to pocket the savings, companies like Recursion will undercut them on drug prices. This echoes a paradigm shift seen in retail, where Amazon’s innovation led to lower prices, illustrating the transformative potential of AI in the biopharmaceutical industry.
