This AI moment: Two steps forward and one step back – Chris Arendt

Takeda CSO in conversation at BioCentury Grand Rounds U.S. on successes and challenges of bringing AI into a 250-year-old pharma company

Chris Arendt, CSO of Takeda, likens the AI overhaul at the pharma to gutting and rebuilding an old house, from the plumbing and electrical up, while you’re still living there. In a Fireside Chat at Grand Rounds U.S. in Seattle, Arendt sat down with Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn to discuss how Takeda is integrating AI across R&D, in and beyond the science, while still executing on the active programs in drug development.

The interview is available as a special audio-only edition of The BioCentury Show.

Arendt points to the differences between an AI-native start-up and a 250-year old company like Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4502; NYSE:TAK) in utilizing and introducing AI, which go well beyond specific science applications in R&D. “We need to really be able to retrofit our data systems so that we have the connectivity of every instrument in the lab,” said Arendt, emphasizing the need to change workflows in functions such as procurement, on which they depend. “If it takes you six months to bring a new vendor on board, that means their technology could be obsolete by that time.”

Arendt also discussed how to move forward with different adoption rates and enthusiasm across the company, the value of combining top-down endorsement plus sandbox innovation, and the areas inside R&D where AI is proving to be game-changing.