The new unit economics of drug discovery

AI’s Transformative Power: Reshaping Drug Discovery and Healthcare Economics at Web Summit Vancouver 2026

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing drug discovery by enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and accelerating medicine delivery to patients. This paradigm shift also promotes prevention and health, moving healthcare systems towards sustainability. Mr. Handol Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Variational AI, explained that the traditional model involves biologists identifying targets and chemists synthesizing molecules, a lengthy, expensive, and iterative process due to the immense chemical space.

Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, CEO of HealthAI, highlighted the critical role of governments in establishing governance and regulation for responsible AI scaling. His organization works with nations to ensure AI accelerates personalized therapeutics and addresses population health, including prevention. AI also promises to expedite clinical trials through innovative methods like sandboxing and digital twins, but current regulatory frameworks are often outdated for these advancements.

Governments must invest in data governance and privacy, moving beyond traditional firewalls between regulators and the private sector. Close collaboration is essential for AI’s development to serve the common good. AI can make failures faster and cheaper, leading to more accessible and affordable pharmaceuticals. However, Ms. Jennifer Strong, the moderator, raised concerns about the balance between speed and safety, particularly regarding public misinformation and the misuse of AI for self-medication.

Dr. Leite stressed that healthcare innovation thrives on trust. With billions invested in new technologies, effective health technology assessment models are crucial to balance cost, risk, and benefit. Robust governance, including post-market surveillance for adaptive AI, is vital for widespread adoption. He cautioned against merely retrofitting AI into inefficient existing workflows, which only makes inefficiency more efficient.

Instead, Dr. Leite advocates for a complete reimagining of health systems, leveraging AI to build new models centered on prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and follow-up. This holistic reinvention represents the greatest opportunity. Mr. Kim added that AI is not a “silver bullet” but a collection of tools for specific problems, with different models addressing various stages of drug discovery.

AI’s effectiveness is limited by data availability for training and struggles where fundamental biological understanding is incomplete. However, its rapid progression means current limitations will quickly diminish. Dr. Leite affirmed AI’s current impact, citing insulin pumps using digital twins for dose testing and AI’s integral role in COVID vaccine development. He urged aligning financial incentives properly to ensure technology genuinely serves the common good.