by Ian Cooper

At the moment, pharmaceutical companies are applying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to drug development. With those tools, they’re creating new drugs for a range of ailments, and potential multi-billion-dollar opportunities, says Morgan Stanley.

That’s because – with AI – success rates in drug trials are higher.

Right now, new drug development has a ridiculous fail rate of 90% for companies.

However, with artificial intelligence, the rate of failure could drop, and the design of new drugs could become far easier. In fact, according to Pfizer, AI could assist pharma companies in getting medicines to market faster. AI today not only does flashy gene-sequencing work, it’s being trained to predict drug efficacy and side effects, and to manage the vast amounts of documents and data that support any pharmaceutical product.

We can trade that potential with companies, such as:

Lantern Pharma Inc. (LTRN)

With a market cap of just over $50 million, be cautious with Lantern Pharma (LTRN). But also realize it could potentially be a game-changer in the fight against cancer with AI. With the help of machine learning, AI, and advanced genomics, its platform can scan billions of data points to help identity compounds that could help cancer patients.

With early-stage discovery and development, the traditional approach can take three to five years, and between $10 million and $50 million. With Lantern, the process can be as low as two years, with $1 million to $5 million in costs. Even better, with the assistance of its AI Platform, RADR, the company created LP-184 for solid tumors, and just received US FDA clearance to begin testing in Phase 1 trials.

Predictive Oncology (POAI)

There’s also Predictive Oncology (POAI).

With its PEDAL platform, the company can “efficiently challenge a compound to demonstrate drug response within a set of heterogeneous tumor samples representing what the compound would encounter in a clinical trial. Thus, providing a leading indicator of clinical performance,” as noted by the company’s Chief Business Officer, Pamela Bush, Ph.D., MBA, in a recent press release.