| By Alison Snyder |
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| Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios |
| Quantum computing and biotech companies are testing whether next-generation computing technology could help them develop better drugs and cut the time and cost of finding new ones.Why it matters: Making drugs faster and cheaper with quantum computers could solve one of pharma’s most vexing problems and simplify a process that now can take decades and cost billions.Quantum computing is advancing, but it still hasn’t been harnessed to solve real-world problems that classical computers can’t. Biotech could be a proving ground for the technology, which some skeptics say has been hyped, like AI.Where it stands: Today’s quantum computers are largely used for research problems — modeling materials or chemical reactions.Pharma and tech companies are hoping they can soon provide a more efficient and accurate way to analyze an ever-growing amount of data.Quantum computers should be able to precisely simulate molecules and the way they interact, which current classical computers can, at most, approximate.Accurate predictions of the behavior of the thousands of atoms in a proposed drug and its environment would be a game-changer.Google and German pharma giant Boehringer Ingelheim are collaborating on using quantum computing for molecular simulations, and French quantum computing startup Pasqal is partnering with Qubit Pharmaceuticals to tackle the problem.Some pharma companies are using quantum computing for another type of problem: mathematical optimization to find the best solution to a problem that can be solved many ways.Moderna, in partnership with IBM Research, is experimenting with using quantum computers to predict how messenger RNA molecules fold.The loops, hairpins and other features of RNA structure influence how proteins are synthesized and genes are expressed — critical information when designing an RNA-based drug.Quantum optimization could answer questions like how to get the same immune response from a vaccine at a lower dose, or with a vaccine formula that could be kept at room temperature.Go deeper |
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