Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence have received widespread attention in the field of new drug research and development, and concepts such as "virtual clinical trials" have also emerged one after another. On November 2nd, at the World's Top Scientists' New Drug Development Forum, top scientists from around the world discussed a new chapter in pharmaceuticals.

The 2013 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Ariel Wascher, focused on the key role of computer technology in the COVID-19 epidemic and the pharmaceutical industry: "Now we have great computing power, which can solve many problems that can not be solved in the past. Take COVID-19 as an example, Waschel and his research team predicted the possibility of virus mutation through computational research methods last June, and carried out relevant research before the real mutation occurred. For drug research and development, computers can also be used to calculate the binding affinity of drugs.
Yang Zhantao, Deputy Secretary General of the World Top Scientists Association and Senior Scientist of the International Joint Laboratory of World Top Scientists, mentioned the application of artificial intelligence in new drug research and development. Whether it's biological research or pharmaceutical discoveries, it's not just about numbers, but about the true efficacy, function, effectiveness, and whether drugs are harmful to patients.
"AI is very hot now, especially in the past three years, it is a hot field." In the opinion of Jiang Hualiang, an academician of the CAS Member, AI is just a new technology, and we should use it very carefully.
Artificial intelligence is just an advanced technology that can shorten the time of drug development, or help clinical experiments collect clinical data to establish models, and then predict whether drugs will succeed. We may be able to do so within 5 years.
At the same time, Jiang Hualiang also stated that in actual clinical trials, it is actually a problem because clinical trials are conducted in the human body, rather than being completed by artificial intelligence.
Clinical trials should be conducted in the human body, not artificial intelligence, "Academician Jiang Hualiang and Wang Xingli, the head of Novartis Global Drug Development Department (China), emphasized the subjectivity of humans in clinical trials. Despite seeing the cutting-edge application of machine learning in clinical research in IBM laboratories several years ago, Wang Xingli still stated that artificial intelligence cannot replace real human experiments.
How can a drug benefit patients if it is not applicable to all patients? Ten thousand out of millions of compounds may become the final drug, but its receptors may only be applicable to a small population range.
In the process of clinical trials, due to the small sample size, we need to use artificial intelligence to calculate how the drug will perform on a large number of other patients. How can we modify our recruitment receptor specifications in clinical trials
So, artificial intelligence can help us in this regard, which can enhance the specificity of drugs and shorten the development cycle of drugs Wang Xingli said.