AI has transformed the search for new medicines. Now drug companies are betting it can fix the slow, expensive process of testing them in humans. Ask a pharmaceutical company about the current approach to clinical trials and you’re likely to hear a chorus of complaints about a broken and dysfunctional system. It takes on average at least a decade and roughly $1-2 billion (CHF790 million-1.6 billion) to develop a new drug. Around 60-70% of that time is spent in the three phases of human testing. The longer a clinical trial takes, the longer it takes for that medicine to reach patients. To make matters worse, companies often waste time and money on trials for drugs that aren’t ultimately approved by regulators. For every 100 drugs that begin human trials, about 90 aren’t given the green light because the tests fail to prove the medicines are safe or effective. “The industry has just accepted that risk and failure are a part of drug development because there has been no other option,” …