Pharma eyes AI deals to stem lost revenues from patent expirations

Pharmaceutical giants are employing an array of tactics to minimise the falling revenues that travel erstwhile patents expire connected their apical drugs. Among these, experts accidental artificial quality (AI) is playing a increasing and perchance revolutionary role.

A question of expirations, oregon a ‘patent cliff,’ connected pharma’s biggest selling drugs has sped the gait of dealmaking successful the past fewer years. A increasing fig of deals betwixt pharma and AI companies successful caller times are aimed astatine enhancing interior R&D and easing the unit to restock cause pipelines.

According to a GlobalData Strategic Intelligence report, the patent cliff betwixt 2024 and 2030 volition spot the planetary stock of drugs protected nether patents autumn from 6% to 4%; betwixt 2025 and 2030, an estimated $236bn volition beryllium mislaid successful US revenues unsocial arsenic a result. GlobalData is the genitor institution of Pharmaceutical Technology.

A akin inclination was seen much than a decennary ago, erstwhile the stock of patent-protected drugs dropped from 14% successful 2007 to 10% successful 2010, and drugs similar Boehringer Ingelheim’s Flomax (tamsulosin), Pfizer’s Lipitor (atorvastatin), and MSD’s Cozaar (losartan) mislaid exclusivity. Despite this precedent, pre-emptive enactment is hard acknowledgment to the unpredictable 10–15-year lifecycle of cause development, says GlobalData Healthcare expert George El-Helou.

Acquisition deals person traditionally plugged the mislaid gross of patent expiries, but the transformative interaction of AI connected the assemblage has present begun to pull peculiar involvement from large pharma. In October 2025, Eli Lilly announced its landmark AI supercomputer task successful collaboration with NVIDIA. In January 2026, AstraZeneca agreed it would get Modella AI arsenic GSK acquired AI capabilities from London, UK-based Noetik and San Mateo, California-based Helix.

“[AI is] progressively seen arsenic a mode to fortify interior R&D productivity,” says El-Helou, portion of large pharma’s propulsion to determination distant from relying connected a fewer blockbusters and towards a steadier travel of differentiated assets.

Pharma companies look for respective capabilities successful AI, says Andrée Bates, PhD, CEO of AI consultancy Eularis. Principally, AI-driven tools are sought to drastically velocity up cause improvement and trim costs, and Eularis has worked with respective high-profile companies to chopped cause improvement limitations to this end, she says.

Bates points to AI biotech In Silico arsenic a premier illustration of however AI tin overturn improvement successful this way. In Silico has reported an mean clip of 13 months from task initiation to campaigner enactment successful a 2025 Nature Medicine insubstantial published connected the company’s AI-developed cause rentosertib. In a Phase IIa idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) survey (NCT05938920), the cause was recovered to beryllium harmless and indicated affirmative signals successful expanding lung function.