ASHG 2026: Where value is made in drug Research and Development

This post expands on a talk I gave at the 5 Prime Sciences Symposium at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) in Montréal on October 20, 2026, titled “Managing an R&D portfolio through the critical value creation period (CVCP).” The slides and a companion guide with full references are available here and here. A PDF copy of this blog, which was created with the help of AI, can be found here. A paradox at the heart of drug R&D Biopharmaceutical R&D does not lack investment. Investor funding for AI-enabled drug discovery roughly doubled between 2023 and 2025, to about $8.4 billion, and the headline value of AI partnerships signed by the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies reached about $30 billion in 2025 (McKinsey & Company, 2026). The number of active pipeline programs nearly doubled between 2015 and 2024. Yet R&D remains inefficient and expensive, and productivity has not kept pace with spending. The question is not how much capital the industry invests,…