OpenAI called for broader use of AI in life sciences in a new report, saying better access to medical data and more spending on compute, labs, energy, and other infrastructure could speed drug discovery.
The company said AI can help researchers connect fragmented knowledge, design new tools, and shorten some experiments from months to days, and cited one analysis that estimated clinical phase timelines could fall by more than 20%.
OpenAI also said GPT-5 Pro could help find new uses for FDA-approved drugs, but only a small number of AI-discovered or AI-designed drugs have reached clinical trials.
No fully AI-discovered or AI-designed drug has cleared phase 3 trials, and a mid-2025 Nature Medicine paper found AI-discovered drugs had phase 2 failure rates similar to other drugs.
🔗 Source: Axios
Originally written by: Aiko Gao Ishida
Source: Tech in Asia
Published on: 16 April 2026
Link to original article: OpenAI pushes for bigger role in life sciences
