GSK AI Drug Development
The Pharma giant- GlaxoSmithKline is ramping up its use of artificial intelligence & would be recruiting 80 Artificial Intelligence specialists by the end of 2020.
However, the UK’s largest drugmaker by revenue is struggling to hire Artificial Intelligence scientists & engineers from areas such as Silicon Valley. Therefore as an alternative, the drugmaker is looking to former employees in the US Navy, academia, and the music industry to fill positions in the new team. The positions are spread ascross London, San Francisco, Heidelberg, Boston, and Philadelphia.
The new GSK AI Drug Development unit will be headquartered in San Francisco, with one GSK executive admitting competition for AI professionals is fierce.
Tony Wood, GSK’s senior vice-president of medicinal science & technology, said that GSK is sourcing the best minds of the planet, and the competition is fierce. Mr. Wood highlighted that there are very few AI experts across the globe.
Among those to be hired will be qualified researchers as a Ph.D. or master’s candidate who will be working on AI drug development projects in London under a new fellows program. Artificial Intelligence will be used to help find treatments for conditions such as autoimmune diseases & cancer, including
rheumatoid arthritis.In recent years, the increasing use of AI in the drug development industry has begun to transform the drug development process. Drug development traditionally takes years, but AI can speed the process up as well as increase the success rate of new medicines from 10% currently.
GSK AI Drug Development- The Process Adopted By GSK
GlaxoSmithKline believes in targeting specific proteins and molecules. This target-specific drug development approach would increase the success rate of the drug.
This has led GlaxoSmithKline to invest heavily in human genome research, which involves analyzing interactions of genes, including gene therapy, which aims to fix genetic defects and re-engineer patients’ cells to fight disease.
The main base of GSK’s Artificial Intelligence team will be next to a new laboratory focused on functional genomics in San Francisco that the drugmaker is building in partnership with the University of California.
GSK recently developed one of the first gene therapies, for a rare immune deficiency known as “bubble baby” syndrome called Strimvelis.
With more Artificial Intelligence-based drug development in the pipeline, we can expect GSK to come up with breakthrough research soon.
