Tencent (OTCMKTS: TCEHY) Healthcare President Alex Ng says smaller biotech companies are quicker to adopt artificial intelligence than their larger counterparts.
Ng made the remarks on Thursday as more businesses across the pharmaceutical industry look to AI to drive efficiency and reduce operational costs.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to AI to accelerate research and development, betting on new modeling tools and automated labs to cut costs and shorten drug development timelines.
Major drugmakers including Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have already announced AI-related collaborations with technology firms, signaling a broader industry shift.
Ng explained that smaller companies are better positioned to move quickly on AI adoption due to their leaner structures and greater operational urgency.
“When you have less people, when you need to do more, you tend to figure out more efficient ways of doing things,” Ng told Reuters.
“AI is definitely something that they latch onto very quickly,” he added, referring to smaller biotech firms operating under tighter resource constraints.
Ng cautioned, however, that larger pharmaceutical companies face structural barriers to successful AI integration due to their elaborate organizations and specified workflows.
For very big pharmaceutical companies, simply adding an AI tool into existing systems will sometimes not be successful, according to Ng.
Industry forecasts suggest that using machine learning to optimize target discovery, design molecules, and streamline clinical trial planning could halve early-stage development timelines and costs within the next three to five years.
Ng also noted a broader cultural shift in how people perceive and engage with AI as the technology continues to mature and improve.
“I think the culture and the environment and the discussion has changed so much that I think a lot of people are a lot more positive,” Ng said.
