Progress is not a sprint, but a marathon

Medical progress takes endurance because most promising drug candidates never reach patients. George Tousimis, managing director of Amgen Austria, said biotechnology aims to turn scientific research into therapies that improve patients’ lives.

Amgen focuses its research on cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammatory conditions and rare diseases. These illnesses differ widely, Tousimis said, but all can profoundly affect patients and require new treatment options. Of 10 substances that reach clinical trials after laboratory research, only one typically makes it through regulatory approval. Understanding whether an idea can become a medicine can take years.

The tools have changed sharply since the biotech industry began using modern genetic research and artificial intelligence. Tousimis said producing a genetic “blueprint” of a person cost more than 10 million euros and took several months two decades ago. Today, he said, the process costs about 500 euros and takes one to two days.

That progress helps researchers understand why people develop particular diseases or respond differently to medicines. Artificial intelligence can also help design and build proteins, which form the basis of many modern medicines, while processing the vast quantities of data generated during drug development more quickly.

Tousimis said these tools can improve individual treatment outcomes and make healthcare systems more efficient. They may reveal links that previously remained difficult to detect, but technology alone cannot produce better medicine. “At the end of the day, we are not treating data, but people,” he said.

“

At the end of the day, we are not treating data, but people.