Eli Lilly and Company recently announced it is collaborating with OpenAI to work on antibacterial discovery. The official announcement focuses on using the latest technology to accelerate the pace of drug discovery for disease with unmet need.

I wanted to share my thoughts on why I am excited on this collaboration:

Medicines treating bacterial infections have greatly extended our lifespans; we’ve come a long way from the days of fatal paper cuts. However, the silent rise of antibacterial resistance poses an asymmetrical threat to our healthcare foundation. Antibacterials play a big role in every hospital intervention and make complex medical treatments and surgeries possible. So our entire healthcare system globally, rests on availability of efective antibacterials.

Medicine discovery involves many complex objectives that need simultaneous optimization. Can we harness the latest technology to accelerate this process, making it more efficient and cost-effective? In turn, reducing the high costs often associated with development campaigns.

Technological progress isn’t predetermined; it’s shaped by our choices and efforts. Despite biology’s complexity and drug discovery’s multifaceted challenges, I believe in the unreasonable effectiveness of data and AI to drive breakthroughs.

Inspired by Richard Hamming’s challenge to his peers in his famous lecture, we ask ourselves: Are we addressing the most important problems in our field? Antimicrobial resistance is critical, and now is the time to tackle it head-on.

Excited and fortunate to be part of this!