Hi, this is Ira Flato, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today on the show, experts have been promising new effective drugs designed by AI.

So, where are they?

We have nothing actually on the market that can be attributed in any way directly to AI.

So something has gone wrong.

It's overblown expectations.

With AI basically everywhere these days, there's debate about how useful generative AI actually is.

But one area where experts think it could be game-changing is scientific research

and speeding up major discoveries. One of the fields that experts think is ripe for this

application is drug discovery, an expensive and time-consuming process. It can take decades

before a drug comes to market. But so far,

there's great disappointment. The few AI-designed drugs that have made it to clinical trials

haven't been approved. And what was once a hot space for venture capital investment has cratered

in the last few years. And many startups have shut their doors.

So why exactly has it been so hard to make AI design drugs? What are the fundamental issues,

and what does the future of this space look like? Here with some answers is Dr. Peter Coveney.

He's the director of the Center for Computational Science

in University College of London's chemistry department. He studies how chemistry discoveries

can be sped up with algorithms and computers. Peter, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you very much,

indeed. You're welcome. Before we get into the challenges, can you walk us through

normally how drugs are made the old-fashioned way? Why does it take so long? Why is it so expensive?

It's a big challenge. We would like to understand how the body works to design drugs correctly.

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