Axios

In vitro fertilization has exploded across America. The number of babies born through assisted reproductive technologies — most of them via IVF — jumped 45% from 2013 to 2022.

• A more recent part of the surge is elective IVF — still a small share of overall IVF cycles — in which people who could conceive naturally choose IVF to screen embryos for genetic traits linked to cancer risk, IQ, height and more.

Why it matters: It's becoming big business, with screening companies promising "generational health." But doctors warn that the science behind embryo scoring for complex conditions is shaky — and could push would-be parents toward major medical and emotional decisions based on unproven data.

Artificial intelligence is struggling to understand accented English and non-standard dialects, creating problems that can cascade into biased hiring, grading or clinical records.

Why it matters: AI is deciding who gets a job interview, how students are graded, and what doctors record in a patient's chart. But major speech-to-text systems make far more errors for Black speakers than for white speakers.

NEW YORK — Key players in biotech research at the Axios BFD summit on Nov. 18 discussed new drug development ideas and how the industry can adapt and grow amid major technological shifts.

• Axios' Katherine Davis and Claire Rychlewski moderated the roundtable discussion, which was sponsored by Bayer.

Why it matters: AI's role across the drug discovery process continues to grow, and companies are looking for ways to apply the technology to improve patient outcomes.

• However, no drug discovered exclusively by AI has reached the marketplace to date.

Five key takeaways from participants in the roundtable …

1. Products like GLP-1s are bellwethers for progress, Enveda CXO Daniel Wee said. "A lot of analysts would have written off [obesity treatment as] slower than it is, but having something like the GLP-1s show what the potential of a great drug can do."
2. Direct-to-consumer platforms can potentially educate patients about drug indications, said Alexander Kerman, head of life science at Ubie Health. As more pharmaceuticals hit the market with various uses in mind, it's important that the public understands how to access and use them safely.
3. The promise of AI in biotech advances isn't in small improvements, RA Venture partner Jacob Oppenheim said. It's in discovering entirely new ways to fight diseases.
4. If the tech industry, like AI, becomes too centralized by certain owners, "and we're beholden to those owners … we're going to lose, as a society," warned Procept, Partners LLC founder Shawn Knopp.
5. Clinical trials are king when it comes to predicting and evaluating results, Wee said: "It's going to be incredibly hard to refute what happens when you give someone a drug versus what a model says. We'll take the person every time."

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Simon Rosof, Bayer Pharmaceutical's senior vice president and head of product and pipeline, noted how AI has streamlined the company's ability to screen gene-driven diseases.

• "We've seen the ability to already screen more than 5,000 gene-driven diseases, and get that down to five actionable pipeline targets in a matter of a single 90-day sprint."
• In the past, the process took close to a year, Rosof said.

Brian Cantwell, Bayer Pharmaceutical's vice president of digital strategy and product operations, addressed the challenge of patients researching and finding health care options via tools like ChatGPT, which lack physician oversight.

• "How do we create that single entry point … so that they can very quickly understand the options available to them, consult with a health care professional, and then ultimately make the best possible decision with the right treatment at the right price that they can afford?" he asked.

Physical Intelligence, a San Francisco-based developer of AI software for robots, has raised $600 million led by Alphabet's CapitalG at a $5.6 billion valuation.

Why it matters: There's tons of talk about how AI could lead to a white-collar jobpocalypse, in a reversal of the 1980s and 1990s factory automation boom. "Learn to plumb, not to code."

• But VCs are pumping a ton of cash into marrying AI and robotics, which suggests that all collar colors could get singed.

The mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, are leading a global commitment with eight other mayors to ensure that companies build AI systems more sustainably.

Why it matters: Mayors are on the front lines of the global data center boom. They respond to residents' concerns, rising energy prices, water management issues and other infrastructure demands.