The pharmaceutical industry is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) with a rise in startups and biotechnology companies whose projects promise to revolutionise drug development. “In five years, all small molecules will have been discovered using generative AI methods,” said Yann Gaston-Mathé, CEO of the startup Iktos. Founded in 2016, the startup, with approximately 60 employees in the Paris region, uses AI to design cancer drugs. Iktos aims to “halve the time it takes to discover a pre-clinical drug candidate,” which has not been tested in humans, according to Quentin Perron, its chief stra…