a16z argues AI could improve drug development success

The author argues that artificial intelligence has the potential to transform pharmaceutical economics by improving drug development success rates and reducing timelines, potentially allowing pharma companies to rival software businesses in market value and valuation structure. The piece explores the dual nature of pharma economics as a high-risk hits business and a high-reward annuity business, detailing how emerging AI models for scientific reasoning and molecular design could create repeatable discovery engines. Open article →