Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery Market Size

AI in Drug Discovery Market Analysis

Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery Market is expected to register a CAGR of 32.8% over the forecast period.

The COVID-19 pandemic initially had a substantial impact on artificial intelligence in the drug discovery market. With the massive and fast-paced demand for developing novel drugs to treat the symptoms of the novel coronavirus infection and curb its infection, AI held the potential to identify some promising drug candidates, which helped optimize the ligand-based de novo drug design for COVID-19. Some companies deployed AI to accelerate the speed of the COVID-19 drug discovery research. For instance, in 2021, BenevolentAI utilized machine learning to expedite the drug discovery of COVID-19, which discovered barcitinib as a potential drug against COVID-19. In 2022, Insilico Medicine identified a novel preclinical therapeutic drug candidate, a 3CL protease inhibitor, for the treatment of COVID-19 with the use of the generative chemistry AI platform Chemistry42. AI offered better data accessibility, which has helped the researchers utilize a large amount of published data about the virus from the population, such as the infectivity rate of COVID-19.

Furthermore, AI has not only accelerated the speed of screening drug candidates but also underlined the pitfalls of the traditional drug discovery processes. The promising speed and efficacy of AI were helpful for safe, highly efficient, and accelerated drug discovery to curb the infection of COVID-19. During the pandemic and post-pandemic phases, several AI companies, startups, and organizations have received funding for COVID-19 drug discovery. For instance, in May 2022, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), known as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), awarded over USD 577 million for the establishment of nine Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern. In July 2021, Exscientia entered a collaboration of nearly USD 70 Million for the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics against Coronavirus. Thus, the COVID-19 outbreak has positively impacted the market's growth amid the pandemic. Additionally, it is expected to aid the drug discovery process with emerging variants worldwide over the coming years, as per our analysis. The market is expected to grow further at a notable pace with its increasing use in drug discovery for COVID-19 and other related disease areas globally.

Further, the digitization of the clinical drug discovery processes is also driving the growth of the market. The use of big data and the use of AI with stage modeling, selection of leads, and optimization steps in the area of computational biology are helpful in the drug discovery process. The digital approaches have been helpful during the analysis of big data from the domains of pharmacological, chemical, biological, and clinical research. For instance, in November 2022, Monash University of Australia utilized big data, which can be repurposed for use in broader medical applications such as the repurposing of dimethyl fumarate for multiple sclerosis and thalidomide for multiple myeloma. In October 2022, Verge Genomics, a clinical-stage and tech-enabled biotechnology company that utilizes AI for drug discovery purposes announced the first dose of the drug VRG50635 for the management of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Such instances are likely to favor the market's growth.

In addition, several drug manufacturers have collaborated with AI companies to expedite their drug discovery programs. For instance, in January 2022, Sanofi and Exscientia signed a research collaboration and license agreement for the discovery and development program for four types of cancer (non-small cell lung cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, mesothelioma, and multiple myeloma) using the AI-driven platform of Exscientia. In November 2022, AI company, CytoReason expanded its multi-year partnership with Pfizer to utilize its AI technology for drug discovery and development.

Therefore, owing to the aforementioned factors, it is anticipated that the studied market will witness growth over the analysis period. However, the high cost and the errors associated with the management of the data and its standardization are likely to impede the market growth.