In order to describe the current status of adoption of artificial intelligence in drug discovery, BCG and Wellcome Trust put together a report identifying general pain points in the drug discovery pipeline (Figure 4 snippet below - focusing on target ID and validation and molecule optimisation).

 

The aim of the HitchhikersAI survey and follow-up interviews is to build on these findings by focusing on the pain points experienced by small to medium, early drug discovery biotechs in the UK, US and Europe - initially focusing on small molecules. We intend to use the findings of our survey to facilitate collaboration between early drug discovery biotechnology companies and different stakeholders (vendors, open-source, academics etc.) to address these pain points, enabling bench scientists to access data- and AI-driven insights currently out of their reach.