drug discovery

Pharmaceutical company Roche has outlined plans to move towards autonomous, AI-driven laboratories. According to a Reuters report, the Swiss drugmaker intends to use artificial intelligence and robotics to automate research workflows, accelerating drug discovery and reducing the need for manual lab work. The announcement highlights how major pharma firms are adopting AI to speed up experimentation and research.

Anthropic has established a new biology lab, a move widely read as a signal that the AI company intends to go beyond building models and push into applying artificial intelligence to life sciences research. Commentators say the project suggests Anthropic sees AI-driven biology, including drug discovery and scientific research, as a core part of its future strategy rather than a side project.

Researchers have identified a new potential treatment target for high blood pressure, a condition affecting over a billion people worldwide and a leading risk factor for heart disease and stroke. The discovery could open the door to new drug development beyond existing blood pressure medications. Details of the findings and their clinical significance remain limited.

Anthropic has established its own wet laboratory as it expands its AI-driven drug discovery programme, according to Reuters. The lab will let the company test biological hypotheses generated by its AI models in real experiments. Observers see it as a notable step for an AI firm moving from software into hands-on biology and pharmaceutical research.

Insilico Medicine has signed a co-development deal worth tens of millions of dollars with an unnamed foundation-model laboratory, joining forces to apply large AI models to drug discovery. The Hong Kong-based biotech, known for using generative AI to design drug candidates, has not disclosed its partner or the exact terms, leaving observers speculating about which AI lab is behind the agreement.

Snorkel AI closed a $350 million Series E round led by Insight Partners on September 23, 2026, while biotech startup Enveda raised $311 million in its own Series E the same day. Neither company sells a chatbot, highlighting investor appetite for AI firms focused on data infrastructure and drug discovery rather than consumer chat products.

A new discussion in the drug discovery field argues that progress depends on better data, not simply more of it, calling for a move beyond traditional endpoint measurements toward richer, cell-level data in early research. The piece suggests that understanding what happens inside cells could improve how promising drug candidates are identified, a debate gaining attention as biotech weighs where to invest in new screening technologies.

Former Genentech artificial intelligence staff have launched Ortet, a new health-focused startup backed with $500 million in funding. The venture aims to apply AI to drug discovery and healthcare development, drawing on the founders' experience at one of biotech's most established companies. The size of the initial backing has made it one of the more notable biotech launches of the moment.

10x Genomics has started shipping its Atera spatial biology platform to customers. The launch moves the company further into the fast-growing spatial biology market, where labs map gene activity directly within tissue samples. Researchers see the rollout as a step toward making spatial analysis tools more widely available for drug discovery and disease research.