A space odyssey for new an­tibi­otics: MIT's ma­chine learn­ing ap­proach

Drug de­vel­op­ment is com­plex, ex­pen­sive and comes with lousy odds of suc­cess — but in most cas­es, if you make it across the fin­ish line bran­dish­ing a prod­uct with an edge (and play your cards right) it can be a lu­cra­tive en­deav­or.

As it stands, the an­tibi­ot­ic mar­ket is cursed — it har­bors the stink of mul­ti­ple bank­rupt­cies, a dearth of in­no­va­tion, and is con­se­quent­ly bare­ly whet­ting the vo­ra­cious ap­petites of big phar­ma or ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists. En­ter ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence — the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try’s cure-all for the pesky process of mak­ing a ther­a­peu­tic, in­clud­ing da­ta min­ing, drug dis­cov­ery, op­ti­mal drug de­liv­ery, and ad­dress­able pa­tient pop­u­la­tion.

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