AI Drug Discovery Is a $50 Billion Opportunity for Big Pharma

Finding a potential blockbuster medicine typically takes years of extensive analysis in the laboratory, with teams of researchers methodically sifting through data and test results to unearth a promising candidate. But when Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. bought an experimental psoriasis drug for $4 billion from a Boston startup in February, it gained a compound selected in only six months by using artificial intelligence.

In coming months, the drug—picked out of thousands of potential molecules through AI and machine learning algorithms—will progress to the final stages of clinical trials. If successful, it could become one of the first therapies discovered with ...