Drug development on AI infrastructure from Big Tech companies: the risk of vendor lock-in and unclear IP rights
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly basing drug development on AI infrastructure provided by companies such as Nvidia, Google, Microsoft or Amazon. This accelerates research but carries the risk of dependence on a single supplier and uncertainty over who holds the rights to drugs developed with the help of AI.
According to the source, the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly collaborating with technology companies to develop drugs using artificial intelligence. Over the past year, Nvidia announced a partnership with Eli Lilly for a joint AI laboratory for drug research and built hybrid-cloud AI infrastructure for the pharmaceutical industry with Roche. According to an estimate by the consulting firm McKinsey, generative AI could bring the pharmaceutical and medical product manufacturing sector an additional 60 to 110 billion dollars annually.
However, according to the source, more efficient drug development comes with a growing risk that the industry will become dependent on a small number of AI technology suppliers — if pharmaceutical companies base development on the infrastructure, cloud services and computing power of a single provider, switching to a competitor may be difficult. Open biological tools, such as OpenFold, are emerging as an alternative to closed models from Big Tech companies, allowing them to run on their own infrastructure and reducing dependence on a single supplier.
According to a study published by the US agency National Library of Medicine, it is also unclear who holds ownership and usage rights to drugs developed with the help of AI tools supplied by a technology company, while the input data and the most financially demanding clinical trials are provided solely by the pharmaceutical industry. The source also mentions concerns about the protection of sensitive health data in the hands of technology companies, citing this year's lawsuit against Tempus AI over the misuse of genetic data supplied to the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and GSK.
Why it matters
Pharmaceutical companies that entrust drug development to the infrastructure of a single technology supplier risk becoming dependent on that supplier, with any switch to a competitor being costly or difficult. At the same time, it remains unclear who holds the intellectual property rights to drugs developed with the help of AI tools, which could lead to disputes between technology and pharmaceutical companies. Open tools such as OpenFold offer the option of running AI research on their own infrastructure, thereby reducing the risk of dependence on a single supplier.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
Anyone choosing AI tools for biotechnology or pharmaceutical research should consider the risk of dependence on a single supplier and the existence of open alternatives, such as OpenFold, that can run on their own infrastructure.
For a business
Companies entering into partnerships with suppliers of AI infrastructure (e.g. Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Amazon) face the risk of vendor lock-in and uncertainty over ownership rights to results developed with the help of AI, as well as the protection of sensitive data.
Risks and complianceCheck the original
Event sources
only one source so far · 1 publisher, 1 independent. We count feeds from the same owner only once.