YC-backed ReactWise is applying AI to speed up drug manufacturing

Artificial intelligence continues stirring things up in chemistry. To wit: YC-backed Cambridge, U.K.-based ReactWise is using AI to speed up chemical manufacture — a key step in bringing new drugs to market. Once a promising drug has been identified in the lab, pharma firms need to be able to produce much larger amounts of the material to run clinical trials. This is where ReactWise is offering to step in with its “AI copilot for chemical process optimization,” which it says accelerates by 30x the standard trial-and-error-based process of figuring out the best method for making a drug. “Making drugs is really like cooking,” said co-founder and CEO Alexander Pomberger (pictured above left, with co-founder and CTO Daniel Wigh) in a call with TechCrunch. “You need to find the best recipe to make a drug with a high purity and a high yield.” The industry has for years relied upon what boils down to either trial-and-error or staff expertise for this “process development,” he said. Adding ... Read full article.