AI For Pharma Growth

In this episode of AI For Pharma Growth, Dr Andree Bates speaks with Nuno Valério, Head of Innovation, R&D Quality at Merck Healthcare, about the part of AI governance most organisations rarely talk about: the operational 80% that decides whether AI survives a pharma audit. Nuno explains why governance cannot stop at policies, committees, risk frameworks and model registers. Those visible elem...

In this solo episode of AI For Pharma Growth, Dr Andree Bates tackles one of the biggest reasons pharma AI strategies stall: they are not presented in the financial language a CFO can approve. Dr Andree argues that the issue is rarely whether AI has value. The issue is that most organisations cannot quantify that value in a way that connects to business outcomes, baselines, investment priorities,...

For most of modern medicine, biological data has been built around population averages: what people like you might experience, rather than what you personally will. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates speaks with Ken Clark, co-founder and CEO of Enigma Genetics, about moving from population models to personal intelligence, and what it could mean for patients, pharma and the future of biological data....

Most pharma companies are racing to apply AI across drug discovery, development and commercialisation, but many of those efforts will fail for one simple reason: the data underneath is not good enough. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates speaks with Lisa Downey, CEO of DrugBank, about why trusted, structured biomedical intelligence is the foundation pharma AI cannot succeed without. Lisa explains how...

On 7 May 2026, the EU reached a provisional agreement to push back the hardest deadlines in the EU AI Act. Many leadership teams heard one message: “we’ve got more time”. In this solo episode, Dr Andree Bates explains why that exhale is dangerous. The timeline moved, but the governance exposure did not. Dr Andree breaks down what the delay does and does not change. The dates may shift, but the arc...

In pharma, the biggest deals are increasingly won or lost before a formal process even begins. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Andrey Doronichev, co-founder and CEO of Bioptic, about the “intelligence gap” in business development, licensing, and corporate strategy, and why many companies are losing opportunities before they even know they’re competing. Andrey shares how his background...

Real world evidence (RWE) could transform drug development and clinical care, but most organisations still struggle to turn messy clinical data into decisions they can trust. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates speaks with Dr Danielle Bower , CEO of QuadraticMed , about bridging the “data use divide” between clinical expertise and data science, so real world data becomes usable evidence rather than n...

Some of the most powerful breakthroughs happen when methods built for one discipline get turned on another. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Dr Irina Babina, CEO of Concr, on how computational techniques originally developed in astrophysics are being applied to oncology, helping predict how individual cancer patients will respond to treatment. Irina shares her journey from genetics and...

Pharma doesn’t have an AI experimentation problem. It has an AI execution, scaling, and ROI justification problem. In this solo episode, Dr Andree Bates names one of the most expensive failure patterns in the industry: pilot purgatory. A key theme is misdiagnosis. When AI stalls, organisations often blame platforms, data science capability, training, vendor selection, or “resistance to change”. Dr...

Cell therapies have huge potential, but cost, complexity, and centralised manufacturing have kept many of them confined to last-line use. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates speaks with Armon Sharei , Founder and CEO of Portal Biotechnologies , about what happens when AI meets cell engineering, and why point-of-care delivery could make personalised cell programming more practical, scalable, and safer...

Clinical trial site selection is one of the biggest hidden bottlenecks in drug development, and it’s still often driven by legacy relationships, spreadsheets, and habit. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Simon Arkell , founder of Ryght, Inc , about “AI Site Twins” and why the next era of site selection shifts from institutional memory to predictive, real-time analytics. Simon explains wh...

For many life sciences teams, the first wave of AI has looked like copilots: smart search, quick answers, and help on demand. Useful, but passive. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates is joined by Parth Khanna , CEO and co-founder of ACTO , to explore what comes next: moving beyond copilots into role-based AI agents that proactively close knowledge gaps, improve field readiness, and operate safely ins...

Many pharma and life science organisations have been investing in AI for years: pilots across commercial, medical, regulatory, and R&D, innovation labs, steering committees, vendor spend, and genuine effort from smart teams. And yet the same story keeps showing up in boardrooms: ROI is unclear, adoption is patchy, and leaders struggle to explain how all the AI activity connects to strategic go...

AI ethics has moved from theory to urgent necessity, especially as AI systems become embedded in healthcare, business decisions, and society at large. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates is joined by Dr Nadia Morozova , founder of Enriched Insights , to unpack what ethical AI really means in practice, and how organisations can innovate quickly without creating risk, bias, or governance failures. Nadi...

Digital biomarkers are turning everyday movement into clinically useful data, giving doctors a clearer picture of what’s happening between appointments, and giving pharma new ways to measure drug impact earlier and more precisely. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Dr Quique Llaudet , CEO and co-founder of Ephion Health , about precision monitoring and how AI-driven mobility analysis is c...

Digital twins have become one of the most promising tools in Alzheimer’s research, but the bigger story is what happens when they scale across disease areas. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Aaron Smith , Founder and Head of Machine Learning at Unlearn AI , about how “digital twin generators” can transform trial design by modelling realistic patient progression and improving statistical...

AI in drug development is moving beyond “failure prevention” into something much bigger: redesigning how we discover, develop, and deliver medicines. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates speaks with Vitalay Fomin of Numenos about biomarker discovery, patient stratification, and why the next breakthroughs come from breaking down data silos across diseases, modalities, and even species. Vitalay shares h...

Enterprise AI is shifting from experiments to infrastructure, and that changes everything. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Jocelyn Houle , Senior Director of Product Management at Securiti.ai , to explore the future of enterprise AI, agents, automation, and the single biggest blocker to scale: trust. Jocelyn shares what she is seeing across highly regulated industries as organisations...

Clinical trials are a massive industry with brutal economics, long timelines, and failure rates that would be unacceptable in almost any other sector. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates is joined by Dr Joseph Geraci of NetraMark to break down why trials fail so often, how patient heterogeneity drives cost and uncertainty, and where AI can realistically shift the economics. Joseph shares his unusual...

AI capability has never been higher, yet most pharma AI programmes are still failing to create measurable business impact. In this solo episode, Dr Andree Bates breaks down why many pharma and biotech AI strategies are “broken before they even begin” and what a real AI strategic blueprint needs to include if you want adoption, scale, and outcomes, not just impressive pilots. Dr Andree explains the...

Healthcare accessibility is still being held hostage by phone queues, missed calls, and clunky portals. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates sits down with Josh Taylor of TxtSquad to explore why simple, secure texting can remove friction for patients and providers, and how AI can support the conversation without making care feel robotic. Josh explains why SMS works where apps often fail: it is familia...

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly woven into everyday life, the real question isn’t just what AI can do — it’s what it should do for humans. In this episode, Dr Andree Bates interviews Dr Morteza Zihayat of Heisenberg Network to explore Human-Centred AI : designing intelligent systems that prioritise welfare, autonomy, dignity and trust over pure technical capability. Morteza explain...

Designing proteins that have never existed in nature is no longer sci-fi — it’s becoming a real drug discovery strategy. In this episode, Kashif Sadiq, Founder & CEO of DenovAI Biotech, explains how AI is powering a shift from searching for biologic binders to intentionally designing new proteins from scratch. Kashif shares his journey from studying physics at University of Cambridge into comp...

Large Language Models (LLMs) are moving far beyond text generation—and into the heart of scientific discovery and pharmaceutical research . In this episode, Javier Tordable , founder and CEO of Pauling.ai and former Google technologist, explains how agentic AI systems are transforming early-stage drug discovery. Javier shares how modern LLMs differ from earlier generations, highlighting their abil...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the pharmaceutical industry—and nowhere is that more evident than in small-molecule drug discovery. In this episode, we sit down with Tom Shani, CEO and co-founder of ProPhet , an AI-driven biotech company focused on discovering drugs for hard-to-target proteins. Tom explains how machine learning models, transformers, and AI-driven molecular representat...