AI Deep Dive: Don't Fear the AI Reaper; Biopharma R&D Survey Points to Positive LT Implications for Tools

Research evidence excerpt

AI Deep Dive: Don't Fear the AI Reaper; Biopharma R&D Survey Points to Positive LT Implications for Tools

AI Deep Dive: Don't Fear the AI Reaper; Biopharma R&D Survey Points to Positive LT Implications for Tools Equity Research

Executive Summary

Like most other industries, investors are grappling with what impact the adoption of AI in biopharma

R&D workflows will have on the life science tools industry and whether the proliferation of these

innovations will be a net-positive or net-negative for demand over time. Based on our investor

interactions over the past several months, we would wager that the consensus leans net-negative

on the overall impact of AI-driven drug development—at least in the near term as more biopharma

companies scale up their AI spend, whereas the longer-term promise of efficiencies/lower costs

ultimately leading to higher ROI's & reinvestment in expanding pipelines remains largely theoretical

right now.

We surveyed 20 biopharma researchers in the US to better understand how AI is being deployed

across the drug development workflow and the implications for wet lab demand and tools spending.

Overall, our survey & deep dive analysis suggest AI adoption will be a net positive for Tools & overall

wet lab activity. Key takeaways from our survey:

• Researchers see AI as an efficiency gainer (higher success rates) and complementary to (not a

replacement for) traditional wet lab activity, given the need to validate in-silico models & generate

data to train models

• 60% of researchers expect wet lab activity to remain stable NT (+LSD/MSD next 1-2 years), while

70% expect wet lab volumes to grow faster over the next 3+ years (median: +10%)

• Majority view AI-driven drug development as still in early-stages of adoption, with a wide range