J&J sees AI halving the time to generate drug development leads

Johnson & Johnson is using artificial intelligence to reduce by half the time it takes to generate new leads for developing drugs, according to the company's chief information officer, Jim Swanson. J&J is using AI to screen for promising chemical compounds or biologics and has accelerated the development process for two compounds, one in oncology and another in immunology. The company is working to develop new drugs as it moves past the patent expiration of Stelara, one of its top-selling medicines. AI is also being used in J&J's medical devices business to help surgeons and in manufacturing to optimize processes. The company has reduced the time to prepare clinical trial reports from 700-900 hours to 15 minutes using AI. J&J currently has about 4,000 information technology employees out of 140,000 total, and Swanson said AI is expanding the role of software engineers rather than replacing them.