Has the AI Drug Discovery Hype Train Derailed? A Reality Check for Pharma and Biotech
When smarter algorithms hit the wall of outdated biology In 2021, venture capitalists poured over $2 billion into AI-powered drug discovery startups. The hope was clear: artificial intelligence could compress a 10-year, multi-billion-dollar R&D cycle into a few years and a few million dollars. Companies like Recursion , Exscientia , and Insilico Medicine emerged as poster children for this new era, promising a revolution that would change the trajectory of pharmaceutical research forever. But fast forward to 2025, and the story looks much different. Stock prices are down. Investors are wary. M&A activity is heating up—not because of success, but because of pressure to survive. What happened? ⸻ 💡 AI Was a Tool, Not a Cure AI drug discovery promised efficiency: faster molecule generation, better hit prediction, and streamlined clinical trial design. In some areas—like protein structure prediction (e.g., AlphaFold)—it delivered. But the ...