Artificial intelligence could significantly accelerate medical research and drug development, potentially helping address major health challenges such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and mental health disorders within less than a decade, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said.
Amodei believes AI could open new avenues for treating diseases that researchers have been studying for decades. He said the technology could play a transformative role not only in understanding diseases but also in developing new medicines.
Similar optimism has previously been expressed by Google AI chief Demis Hassabis and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Hassabis has suggested that artificial intelligence could reduce the drug development process, which typically takes around 10 years, to just a few weeks. He cited Google's AlphaFold system, which has made significant progress by predicting and mapping more than 200 million protein structures.
However, according to international media reports, some medical experts and pharmaceutical industry executives remain skeptical about such predictions.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Chairman Jeff Leiden questioned the ability of AI systems to independently develop effective medicines. He said his company had tested 50 AI systems to evaluate 10,000 drug compounds, but none had independently succeeded in producing an effective medicine.
Experts point out that identifying a potential drug through computer models is only the initial stage of a lengthy research process. Any candidate medicine must undergo laboratory testing, animal studies and multiple phases of clinical trials involving humans before receiving regulatory approval.
The entire drug development and approval process typically takes 10 to 12 years, and experts say AI alone cannot eliminate these essential stages.
Medical specialists also caution that existing AI systems cannot yet fully understand the complex biological mechanisms underlying the human body and various diseases.
They further note that, as of 2026, no AI-developed drug has completed the full regulatory approval process and entered widespread medical use in a way that conclusively validates the most ambitious claims about the technology.
Experts warn that similar predictions about eradicating major diseases, including cancer, have been made in the past without delivering the promised results within the projected timelines.
They say expectations about AI helping overcome major diseases within a few years should therefore be treated with caution, despite its growing potential to transform medical research and drug discovery.
