The Future is Now!
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the yearly BIO international conference. It is put on by the Biotechnology Innovation Organizations and brings together all of the world’s players in the sector to develop business relationships and discuss new developments, as well as the policy issues that affect drug creation. My best estimate is this was my 14th BIO conference, so I feel pretty comfortable in my assertion that this one was the most exciting one. Not exciting from a public policy perspective, I’ll talk about that later, but exciting from the hope the future holds for the health of all of us. I’ve been excited before at BIO conferences. There was a year when there was hope for a breakthrough in medicines for Alzheimer’s, another time there was enthusiasm about new cancer treatments. We were excited in those years because it gave us hope in those disease areas. What makes this year the most intriguing is the fact that there are new tools being developed that will speed up the discovery in almost every disease area. These tools will help scientists focus on the most promising paths and reduce the number of trials and especially the errors in finding the final answers in multiple disease areas. One speaker said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) I will allow scientists to spend more time being scientists. While there were many new tools highlighted, I think the mRNA platform and AI may prove to have the biggest impact on the discovery of new medicines.
The Covid pandemic proved the importance of using the abilities of mRNA to develop vaccines quickly. It enabled us to develop, test and manufacture a vaccine in a few months when historically it took years. Think of the lives that saved. They have now developed a platform that will enabled the creation of mRNA solutions for a variety of diseases in record time. This bodes well, not only for the next pandemic, but also for the many new applications where mRNA technology may not only improve outcomes but even cure diseases.
We are living in an interesting time. We are confronting this almost unexplainable, at least to me, thing called AI. On the one hand some believe it threatens to destroy all mankind but on the other it could become the biggest positive impact ever on the human race. This blog is not the place for a huge philosophical discussion on AI. My goal here is to try to explain why I think AI, in the area of the discovery of new medicines, will have a huge impact on giving us answers and hope for our future health. I listened to multiple sessions at this conference on AI and it seems to me it will first free the scientist from the many mundane but necessary tasks of doing drug research. Second, it will reduce the number of dead ends that have historically been part of the process but cost time and money. Thirdly, it will identify new relationships and statistically relevant outcomes that will uncover new areas of research. Lastly, it will reduce the time and cost of doing trials to speed up the time to market for new drugs. For those of you who are a little nerdy, find out a little more about Large Language Models (LLMs) and Large Ontology Models (LOMs) and why the LOMs are so important in new drug innovation. When I focus on where AI fits into the discovery of new drugs, I see only good, I see only hope, I see only the reduction in suffering and the lengthening of our health span.
Now, unfortunately, we have to return to the reality of our country’s public policy. It seems that in the last few years our lawmakers have created barriers to innovation. The government has cancelled 22 mRNA development contracts. When it comes to drug pricing and access to lifesaving medicines, policymakers have reached for axes when a scalpel was needed. Should other countries pay their fair share of R & D? Absolutely! Is importing their rationing and access delay policies the way to do it? No! In one of the sessions, they talked about how more efficient and less costly it was to do drug trials in China. Trials in China cost 50% less. Some U.S. based drug manufacturers have found it is 40% faster to use China based companies to bring an FDA approved drug to market. The U.S. is losing its worldwide leadership in drug discovery and, among other things, it’s a threat to our security. Unfortunately, the biggest reason for losing our leadership is our legislative and regulatory stance on drug development and production.
I returned from the BIO conference with renewed hope for the future. I see tools like AI not only helping us find new medicines but also helping doctors and hospitals be more efficient. I see these tools enabling our healthcare to be more personalized with treatment options tailored to our specific situation. Each of us is unique, when it comes to treatment options, one size fits all has never been the best choice. Historically it has often been the only choice, but we are at the cusp of truly having individualized solutions. My call to action is to support those lawmakers that see the hope of the future in healthcare and will work to give our country’s innovators the freedom to do what they do best . . . find new medicines that help us all live healthier and longer lives.
Best, Thair