AI chemist figures out how to legally clone expensive patented drugs

Can you spot the magic pill?

Can you spot the magic pill?

BrunoWeltmann / Alamy

Pharmaceutical companies spend billions researching blockbuster drugs – and billions more on legal fees to protect their recipes for making them. But an artificial intelligence has shown it can find a legal way to copy such drugs in seconds.

Chemists create recipes for new compounds like drugs through a process called retrosynthesis. They start with the desired chemical structure and work backward, disconnecting chemical bonds until they are left with a list of simple, cheap starting materials. Making those bonds in the reverse order in the lab should then …

source: newscientist.com