# drug discovery (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 18 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover drug discovery. Page: Feed: --- ## [Before its recent Phase 3 LSD win, Definium modeled up to $70,000 a year for a therapy that could fill a clinical shift](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/before-its-recent-phase-3-lsd-win-definium-modeled-up-to-70000-a-year-for-a-therapy-that-could-fill-a-clinical-shift/) _2026-08-21 · Brian Buntz · Drug Discovery and Development_ New York City–based Definium recently announced positive data from its Phase 3 Voyage trial of DT120, an orally disintegrating 100 µg dose of LSD in adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The company announced positive Phase 3 results for the same compound for major depressive disorder (MDD) in June. Now the company needs to convince… The post Before its recent Phase 3 LSD win, Definium… ## [SIMB Notebook: The Frontiers of Protein Engineering](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/08/simb-notebook-frontiers-of-protein.html) _2026-08-21 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ The Society for Industrial Microbiology (SIMB) annual meeting in Austin the first week of the month was great fun. I caught up with two Warpers, saw some other contacts from that era and met a bunch of new friends. Plus I showed the flag for autonomous laboratories with a talk in a session on applying AI to the field - and got a chance to talk to multiple users of our systems at customer sites.… ## [Metabolic stability: The defining challenge for multifunctional peptides](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/metabolic-stability-the-defining-challenge-for-multifunctional-peptides/) _2026-08-20 · Dr. Hanlin Tao, Haijuan Liu · Drug Discovery and Development_ The demand for peptide therapeutics has grown rapidly in recent years, as the success of GLP-1 drugs has catapulted them to the forefront of developers’ and sponsors’ minds. Although peptides still represent a relatively small share of FDA-approved therapeutics, they offer distinct advantages in treating diseases where small-molecule drugs or therapeutic antibodies fall short. The… The post… ## [As 59% fewer pharma companies cut staff in Q2 in 2026, job postings rise 15%](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/as-59-fewer-pharma-companies-cut-staff-in-q2-in-2026-job-postings-rise-15/) _2026-08-20 · Brian Buntz · Drug Discovery and Development_ 2022 was a big year for layoffs in biopharma. So were the next three. Novartis, for instance, outlined plans to cut up to 8,000 jobs in 2022, after pharmaceutical industry job cuts jumped 280% in 2021. Biogen followed in 2023 with a “Fit for Growth” program that put roughly 1,000 roles on the block. Bristol… The post As 59% fewer pharma companies cut staff in Q2 in 2026, job postings rise 15%… ## [Longevity Is Being Democratized. Here's One of the Largest Rollouts](https://www.forever.ai/p/longevity-is-being-democratized-heres) _2026-08-19 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ Notes from Boston to Shanghai, and why the Ping An Healthcare Longevity launch is a big deal ## [What Trump Can Teach Us About Science](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/what-trump-can-teach-us-about-science) _2026-08-19 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ Donald Trump may be less psychologically interesting than the people who think they are nothing like him. ## [Where in the Drug Discovery Pipeline Does Virtual Cell Have the Most to Contribute?](https://valencelabs.substack.com/p/where-in-the-drug-discovery-pipeline) _2026-08-19 · Ihab · Inside Valence_ tl;dr: The most impactful virtual cell initiatives will be those that make better drugs rather than those that push more drugs through to clinical trials faster. ## [HiFi's Not Very Pacific Waters](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/08/hifis-not-very-pacific-waters.html) _2026-08-19 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ PacBio had a major shakeup early this month. First came a large round of layoffs, which caught several individuals who were very much the face of innovation on social media. Next came the sudden retirement of CEO Christian Henry, who has appeared in this space multiple times, and the elevation of CFO Mark Van Oene to the top seat. Read more » ## [How Sheba Medical Center became OpenAI’s first international hospital partner](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/how-sheba-medical-center-became-openais-first-international-hospital-partner/) _2026-08-18 · Brian Buntz · Drug Discovery and Development_ OpenAI’s first international hospital partnership is taking shape at a giant medical center where English is not the default language and where the electronic health record does not come from Epic, the dominant U.S. EHR vendor. That institution is Sheba Medical Center, the Israel-based medical center with its own 50-plus-person AI Center within ARC, its… The post How Sheba Medical Center became… ## [FDA issues final PDUFA meeting guidance, expands use of written responses](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/fda-issues-final-pdufa-meeting-guidance-expands-use-of-written-responses/) _2026-08-18 · Julia Rock-Torcivia · Drug Discovery and Development_ The FDA has finalized new guidelines for meetings between the FDA and sponsors or applicants relating to the development and review of drugs or biological products under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA). The FDA first published the draft guidance on Sept. 22, 2023, when it collected public comment on the guidelines. The final guidelines contain several changes from the draft, including… ## [Stream Torrents and IPTV Instantly (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/C9WoFeLWN462) _2026-08-18 · **Sponsored**_ Search, index, and play music, movies, books, and live TV in your browser. ## [Pharma’s Real AI Opportunity Is Killing Drugs Earlier](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/pharmas-real-ai-opportunity-is-killing) _2026-08-18 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ Stop! ## [Gilead and Nucleai probe why target-positive tumors can still resist ADCs](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/gilead-and-nucleai-probe-why-target-positive-tumors-can-still-resist-adcs/) _2026-08-18 · Brian Buntz · Drug Discovery and Development_ Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have emerged as one of the busiest and most crowded niches within oncology, given their potential to use an antibody to ferry a potent cytotoxic payload toward tumor cells. The class now spans about 15 FDA-approved products, and the segment is growing steadily. Evaluate Pharma projects the ADC category will reach $57… The post Gilead and Nucleai probe why… ## [Schrödinger-BMS collaboration centers on Bunsen for trillion-scale computational drug discovery](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/schrodinger-bms-collaboration-centers-on-bunsen-for-trillion-scale-computational-drug-discovery/) _2026-08-17 · Brian Buntz · Drug Discovery and Development_ The 1990-founded scientific software firm Schrödinger recently announced a strategic collaboration and software agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) built around Bunsen, Schrödinger’s newly announced agentic AI co-scientist. While the term “AI co-scientist” can have varying definitions, Schrödinger is positioning Bunsen as a sort of execution engine for computational chemistry, including… ## [AI in Drug Discovery: Data Quality, Not Quantity, Is the Bottleneck](https://divingintogeneticsandgenomics.com/post/ai-drug-discovery-data-quality-not-quantity/) _2026-08-17 · Chatomics on Chatomics_ Two important essays on AI in drug discovery landed in August. Both are worth your time. Both have the right intuitions. And one of them is subtly framing the wrong problem, in my opinion. The first is the Nature Reviews Drug Discovery review by Andreas Bender, Morgan Thomas, Jack Scannell, David Shaywitz, Gian Marco Ghiandoni, Joe Greener, and colleagues: "Artificial intelligence in drug… ## [The 50 best-funded biotech companies of 2026](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/the-50-best-funded-biotech-companies-of-2026/) _2026-08-13 · Brian Buntz · Drug Discovery and Development_ By one measure, Alphabet-controlled Isomorphic Labs would tower over every company on this list. The AI drug discovery company has raised $2.7 billion in external financing, including a $2.1 billion Series B announced in May. Its corporate structure, however, puts it outside our definition of an independent biotech startup: Alphabet still controls at least 75%… The post The 50 best-funded biotech… ## [New cell imaging method reveals hidden enzyme activity](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/new-cell-imaging-method-reveals-hidden-enzyme-activity/) _2026-08-13 · Julia Rock-Torcivia · Drug Discovery and Development_ Negative biosensors have often been unusable because, as the sensors lose signal when activity is detected, regions of high enzyme activity can look identical to regions with no activity. Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have solved this problem with a new cell imaging method that allows scientists to see previously hidden enzyme activities by flipping the optical readout of… The… ## [HHS seeks nominees for vaccine advisory panel with $757K estimated annual cost after almost two years without a meeting](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/hhs-seeks-nominees-for-vaccine-advisory-panel-with-757k-estimated-annual-cost-after-almost-two-years-without-a-meeting/) _2026-08-13 · Julia Rock-Torcivia · Drug Discovery and Development_ The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is soliciting nominations for appointment to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), the agency said in a notice published Wednesday. A renewed NVAC charter filed in July estimates the committee’s annual operating cost at $756,918 and calls for staff support equivalent to two full-time employees. The committee has not met since September… ## [A New Human-Made Disease Is Spreading And Nobody is Immune](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/a-new-human-made-disease-is-spreading) _2026-08-13 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ We are screwed, ladies and gentlemen. ## [Novo Nordisk’s ziltivekimab misses Phase 3 primary endpoint](https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/novo-nordisks-ziltivekimab-misses-phase-3-primary-endpoint/) _2026-08-12 · Julia Rock-Torcivia · Drug Discovery and Development_ Novo Nordisk’s ziltivekimab, an investigational human monoclonal antibody that targets the IL-6 ligand, a pro-inflammatory cytokine, to reduce cardiovascular inflammation, did not reduce the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in a Phase 3 trial. “Although ziltivekimab produced the expected biological effect, this did not result in MACE benefits in this population,” Martin Holst… ## [The Evolution of Phenomics: From Supervised Transfer Learning to Generative Foundation Models](https://valencelabs.substack.com/p/the-evolution-of-phenomics-from-supervised) _2026-08-12 · Inside Valence · Inside Valence_ Historically, AI-driven drug discovery has been constrained by data scarcity. ## [Hire AI-Powered Professionals (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/rDL0diPAlhod) _2026-08-12 · **Sponsored**_ Browse public gigs, message candidates, and run video interviews — free to start. ## [The Most Dangerous Number in AI Drug Discovery Is the Benchmark Score](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/the-most-dangerous-number-in-ai-drug) _2026-08-11 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ We just published a paper with results that have generated a surprising amount of praise from the scientific community. ## [Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery: Hands-On Online Workshop Series](https://omicslogic.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-in-drug-discovery) _2026-08-08 · OmicsLogic · OmicsLogic’s Substack_ The AI Drug Discovery Practitioner: From Molecular Data to AI Agents series is a mentor-guided, live training program designed to build practical skills in AI-driven drug discovery workflows. ## [Science Needs More Rebels and Fewer Rule Followers](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/science-needs-more-rebels-and-fewer) _2026-08-05 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ “Congratulations, son!” ## [Reflections on ICML 2026](https://valencelabs.substack.com/p/reflections-on-icml-2026) _2026-08-04 · Alina Selega · Inside Valence_ Reflections from ICML 2026 where over 22,500 (in-person and virtual) attendees discussed the latest breakthroughs in the AI community. ## [Chromatin Landscape of Cancer Cell Lines Identifies Enhancer Subtypes](https://divingintogeneticsandgenomics.com/publication/2026-08-04-chromatin-landscape-cancer-cell-lines/) _2026-08-04 · Chatomics on Chatomics_ ## [The Smartest Scientist Has Never Read a Paper](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/the-smartest-scientist-has-never) _2026-08-03 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ Forget the AI Scientist. ## [When PCR Gives You Lemons...](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/08/when-pcr-gives-you-lemons.html) _2026-08-03 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ I wish to highlight an interesting new preprint from a group at Danish Technical University which explores the schmutz in PCR reactions, demonstrates some surprising conclusions, shows how their results might be very relevant to a common use of amplicon sequencing, and demonstrate a specific utility running PCR on in cases where typical PCR absolutely can't succeed. Put another way, how often do… ## [The Most Successful Machine Ever Built to Mistake Measurement for Learning](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/the-most-successful-machine-ever) _2026-08-03 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ There are few institutions more self-confident than a school. ## [WTF happened to AI? Somewhere along the way, every app became an AI Scientist](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/wtf-happened-to-ai-somewhere-along) _2026-07-29 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ Strange things tend to happen when an industry runs out of original ideas. ## [Dad Had Manuals, I Have An Agent](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/07/dad-had-manuals-i-have-agent.html) _2026-07-28 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ My father was a very methodical person, and that particularly applied when he decided to purchase the second IBM PC clone to appear on the market. A whole host of manuals appeared on his desk and when I started skimming them it was clear he had been there first. Sentences highlighted, marginal notes and of course editing marks to suit his sense of grammar and style. The hardware, operating system,… ## [Crypto Payments, No Custody (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/ELuGwJaz4jT7) _2026-07-28 · **Sponsored**_ Send crypto to merchant wallets via API with real-time updates and automatic fees. ## [The First Nobel Prize for Longevity: Who and When Will Get the Nobel Prize for GLP-1?](https://www.forever.ai/p/the-first-nobel-prize-for-longevity) _2026-07-28 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ After Joel Habener’s death, the frontier AI models I asked now converge on the same core forecast: GLP-1 will receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine next year. ## [Humanity Accidentally Built Civilization](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/humanity-accidentally-built-civilization) _2026-07-27 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ Errors are beautiful. ## [Can We Make Perfumes More Useful?](https://www.forever.ai/p/can-we-make-perfumes-more-useful) _2026-07-26 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ When odorless insect repellents have higher or comparable safety profile to the common perfume ingredients, why not combine them? ## [Why does spherical-linear Bayesian optimization work?](https://austintripp.ca/blog/2026-07-25-spherical-linear-high-dim-bo/) _2026-07-25 · Austin Tripp · Austin Tripp's website_ Preamble This post was the result of me putting Claude Fable to the test in early July when it was made available to the public again and was included in my personal Claude Pro subscription. I gave it a question and some hypotheses about a paper that had been on my radar for a while, and it ran experiments and produced the report below. I reviewed it with roughly the same thoroughness that I would… ## [We Are Building AI Scientists Backwards](https://mattshlosberg.substack.com/p/we-are-building-ai-scientists-backwards) _2026-07-22 · Matt Shlosberg · Matt Shlosberg_ If aliens visited Earth and watched how we discover drugs, they would scratch their heads wondering why we try to teach computers how to be mediocre scientists. ## [Element's Curious Patentsieg](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/07/elements-curious-patentsieg.html) _2026-07-22 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ Last week news broke that Element Biosciences had won a patent lawsuit against Illumina, and that it affected MiSeq. MiSeq???? How did a patent battle in 2026 affect a platform launched nearly a decade and a half ago? And which had been launched about five years before Element incorporated. Which is being put out to pasture, though the MiSeqDx version What witchcraft is this? I've done limited… ## [The Unsung Heroes of the Biotechnology Revolution: Who Made Australia the Top Destination for Clinical Trials and Biomedical Research?](https://www.forever.ai/p/the-unsung-heroes-of-the-biotechnology) _2026-07-21 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ Australia built the fastest, most trustworthy early-clinical system in the world through decades of unglamorous policy work. The world should know its heroes 🫡 ## [Fiber-Seq: Plasmids Model Chromosomes Well](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/07/fiber-seq-plasmids-model-chromosomes.html) _2026-07-20 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ A recent publication in Molecular Cell involving Fiber-Seq caught my attention, though I've since discovered this preprinted over a year ago. One of the challenges in exploring the effects of genetic variations is the cost & effort to generate collections of variation which can be profiled by available methods. This paper explores using Fiber-Seq on transfected plasmids and finds that, with… ## [Connecting Codex to Azure compute](https://medchemash.substack.com/p/connecting-codex-to-azure-compute) _2026-07-12 · Ash Jogalekar · The Curious Wavefunction_ A practical, cost-controlled setup for computational chemists and drug discovery scientists ## [Thoughts on “Grand Challenges for Predictive Modeling in Small Molecule Drug Discovery”](https://austintripp.ca/blog/2026-07-12-grand-challenges-small-molecules/) _2026-07-12 · Austin Tripp · Austin Tripp's website_ I recently read the paper 1 “Grand Challenges for Predictive Modeling in Small Molecule Drug Discovery”, which aims to survey all the challenges in the field I work in. About half of the paper was what I expected, the other half was either new or something I was exposed to but didn’t really think about. In this post I’ll briefly outline what I learned. Things I learned New aspects of binding While… ## [Testing frontier AI models for a fast follower campaign: from target selection to chemical hypotheses](https://medchemash.substack.com/p/testing-frontier-ai-models-for-a) _2026-07-11 · Ash Jogalekar · The Curious Wavefunction_ Why the most useful answer was no ## [The Simulator That Isn't There](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-simulator-that-isnt-there.html) _2026-07-10 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ Okay, this is one of those cases where I kvetch about other people not having built the tools I want to use - perhaps a bit of a insufferably egotistical position. I mean, what gives me the chutzpah to do that? My title, according to me, is "Automation Visioneer", so that gives me the right - though again, self-given title, self-given right. But I hope you'll bear with me, because I think (there… ## [Countable Labs Raises Funds, Heads to Clinic](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/07/countable-raises-funds-heads-to-clinic.html) _2026-07-07 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ I caught up by teleconference recently with Countable Labs CEO Giovanna Prout, fresh off Countable Labs' $26M equity fundraising - a round which was oversubscribed. Top on my agenda: what is Prout's vision to turn that money into products. And how will Countable balance building molecular tools vs. applying those tools to clinical problems? Read more » ## [Potential Longevity Therapeutics: TEAD inhibitors and their role in cancer, fibrosis, and aging](https://www.forever.ai/p/promising-longevity-therapeutics) _2026-07-06 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ Why a safe, balanced pan-TEAD inhibitor may be a pipeline in a product spanning oncology, fibrosis, and aging ## [The Vecchia Gaussian Process Approximation Explained](https://austintripp.ca/blog/2026-07-03-vecchia/) _2026-07-03 · Austin Tripp · Austin Tripp's website_ I recently found myself wanting to use the Vecchia GP approximation for a problem at work where low-rank approximation methods were a poor fit. I had vaguely heard about this approximation from a conversation with Marcus Noack , and I understood that it was a sparse approximation to the GP covariance. I always assumed this meant rounding near-zero entries in a GP covariance matrix to be exactly… ## [Truly All-Atom Boltzmann sampling with AquaGen](https://valencelabs.substack.com/p/truly-all-atom-boltzmann-sampling) _2026-07-01 · Emmanuel Bengio · Inside Valence_ We built a model that shows it’s possible to train a Boltzmann sampler that still works with a key ingredient of biochemical molecular dynamics: water. ## [AI Drug Discovery Dreams: How Fast Can an AI-Discovered Drug Be Approved?](https://www.forever.ai/p/ai-drug-discovery-dreams-how-fast) _2026-06-30 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ What can we learn from the fastest novel target/novel molecule discovery to FDA approval stories to date and should we expect miracles from AI? ## [Alex Hastie Returns to BioNano, Takes CSO Reins](https://omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/06/alex-hastie-returns-to-bionano-takes.html) _2026-06-28 · Keith Robison · Omics! Omics!_ An interesting news item this week is that BioNano Genomics has appointed Alex Hastie as Chief Scientific Officer. Hastie is an obvious choice for CSO, as for many years he was very much the public scientific face of BioNano's development. . But in February 2025 he left BioNano and headed to Arima Genomics. But after a bit over a year at Arima and then a short stint at Inocras, Hastie has returned… ## [Hands-On Workshops on Multi-Omics, Computational Pathology, Machine Learning, Metagenomics, Liquid Biopsy & MORE!](https://omicslogic.substack.com/p/hands-on-workshops-on-multi-omics) _2026-06-27 · OmicsLogic · OmicsLogic’s Substack_ Don't miss this opportunity to join our upcoming hands-on workshops designed for students, researchers, clinicians, and professionals in the life sciences. ## [Can We Accelerate Drug Discovery and Longevity Research by Replacing/Augmenting IND-Enabling Studies With Human Volunteers in Emerging Geographies?](https://www.forever.ai/p/can-we-accelerate-drug-discovery) _2026-06-26 · Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD · Forever.AI: AI, Robotics, Quantum, Longevity, Cryonics & BCI_ Big Idea: Can UAE, KSA, India, and Other Countries Aspiring to Enter The Biotechnology Industry Leapfrog Established Players by Replacing GLP Animal Experiments with Expert Human Volunteers?