Back when he was a student, Andrew Hopkins conceived an idea that would transform the development of life-saving medications. Today, as a professor 16 years later, he has established a
company that employs AI to expedite the discovery and creation of drugs.
His company, Exscientia, is currently working on a pill designed to prevent Covid and precision-based treatments for cancer, among other innovative projects.
Both of Professor Hopkins' parents worked in factories in Port Talbot, where he also gained employment in the steelworks before embarking on his university journey.
Prof. Hopkins was in the midst of a PhD program at Oxford University when he made a pivotal connection between computers and expediting the drug discovery process.
He recounted, "I was studying how to design new HIV drugs back in the mid-90s."
"One night, while returning from the lab at around 2 a.m., it struck me: How could we invent drugs more efficiently than our current methods?"
The concept of leveraging computers to revolutionize drug development remained with him throughout his career over the next two decades.
Growing up near the Port Talbot steelworks, his fascination with science was ignited. His parents, Brian and Barbara, met in 1965 while working in a factory in Neath.
He fondly recalled his summers as a 16-year-old working as a scientist in the steelworks. He was fortunate enough to receive sponsorship, leading to a scholarship for his university education in chemistry at Manchester.
Upon graduating, he returned to the steelworks and attributed a significant part of his early scientific education and business acumen to this experience.
While AI has garnered controversy and calls for greater regulation, Prof. Hopkins firmly believes it will revolutionize healthcare.
He explained, "The reason it costs so much is that most drugs that enter clinical trials fail. Approximately 96% of the drugs we develop are unsuccessful."
"The process takes 15 years to go from an idea to drug approval for patient use."
"AI allows us to conduct approximately 90% fewer experiments than conventional methods for drug development, testing, and optimization."
"We are already demonstrating that our drugs in clinical trials have accelerated projects from around four years to just 18 months."
"A scientist can spend their entire career in a major pharmaceutical company without discovering a single drug. Our goal is to enable our scientists to see multiple drugs progressing into clinical trials and eventually reaching patients throughout their careers."
Exscientia recently used AI in a clinical trial, employing its precision medicine approach on a blood cancer patient's biopsy sample.
"We tested it against nearly 140 different medications, far more than what would be feasible with a single patient," said Prof. Hopkins.
"This allowed us to obtain individualized insights into each patient's response. We can then provide physicians with new drug recommendations based on the patient's response."
"In the control group, unfortunately, everyone's cancer had progressed within a year. However, in the group we tested, 25% of patients remained progression-free even after four years."
Addressing concerns that AI may lead to job losses, Prof. Hopkins views it as "potentially a new industrial revolution."
"Our company now comprises nearly 500 employees, with over 350 in the UK, and offices and labs worldwide," he noted.
"This is about creating new types of jobs. People often mistakenly believe that AI possesses general intelligence or human characteristics, but it's based on mathematics."
"What AI doesn't change is our human nature, nor does it diminish the need for empathy, compassion, and understanding in all our human interactions." Photo by mikemacmarketing, Wikimedia commons.