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Chugai, SoftBank Partner on AI-Driven Drug Development Innovation
Source: Chugai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd

Chugai, SoftBank Partner on AI-Driven Drug Development Innovation

Japanese firms collaborate to accelerate clinical trials through AI agents and specialized language models for pharmaceutical development

Philip Lee profile image
by Philip Lee

Tokyo, Japan—Chugai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd (4519.T), SoftBank Corp (9434.T), and SB Intuitions Inc. have signed a basic agreement to collaborate on clinical development innovation using generative artificial intelligence.

The partnership aims to develop AI agents and pharmaceutical-specific large language models to streamline clinical development operations. 

Developing a single pharmaceutical product requires approximately 9 to 17 years and investments ranging from tens to hundreds of billions of yen before it is distributed in the market.

The three companies will initially develop prototype AI agents for specific tasks, including automated document generation for clinical trials, information gathering for disease data, industry regulations, internal procedures, and exploratory data analysis.

Under the agreement, Chugai Pharmaceutical will provide learning data for clinical development-specialized LLM and handle AI agent planning and evaluation. 

SoftBank will supply AI computing infrastructure and advance social implementation. SB Intuitions will research and develop clinical development-specific LLM and AI agents.

The system will progressively expand into a multi-agent configuration where multiple AI agents collaborate with human operators. 

This collaboration is expected to reduce the duration and resources required for individual clinical trials and new drug approval applications.

The companies anticipate that the partnership will accelerate new drug development processes and strengthen Japan's healthcare industry's international competitiveness.

Philip Lee profile image
by Philip Lee

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