Roche outlines plans to move towards autonomous AI labs

ZURICH, Sept 28 — Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche outlined plans to ​move towards autonomous AI labs to speed up research and development discovery at its pharma ‌investor day on Monday.

Roche is committed to "AI independence" in R&D and ⁠has recently started ​building autonomous AI-driven labs, Aviv ⁠Regev, executive vice president of Genentech Research ‌and Early Development, ‌said.

• About 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.41 billion) from R&D ⁠savings are set to ⁠be reallocated to programs and productivity initiatives by 2026, the company said

• By 2030 Roche aims to bring up to 20 new molecular entities (NMEs) to the market

• The company noted a ‌jump in phase III success ​rate to >80% in 2026 year-to-date from 65% in 2025

• Regev said 40% of pipeline decisions from the fourth quarter of 2025 through the second quarter of 2026 had a tracked AI and/or computational contribution

• The company said it is ​on track for its AI tool Target Nexus ‌to contribute to ‌80% ⁠of research portfolio decisions by the end of 2026

• Roche recently opened its Boston Innovation Center that will in part focus on applications of AI ‌and machine learning in ​drug development

(Reporting by Patricia ‌Weiss in Frankfurt, Patrick ⁠Wingrove ​in London and Marleen Kaesebier in Zurich; Editing by ​Jan Harvey)

Related topics