The race to harness AI in biopharma is on, with billions invested to unlock faster, smarter drug discovery and development.

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, Matthew Studney, SVP, Global R&D IT & Partnerships at Merck, shares how his team is strengthening foundational platforms, upgrading systems, and driving digital transformation across discovery, development, clinical research, and pharmacovigilance. He explains how Merck is reimagining the flow of data, ensuring access for scientists, and piloting machine learning and generative AI solutions to accelerate research and deliver treatments more effectively.

Matt highlights how deep learning models are shortening drug development cycles, how pharmacovigilance safeguards patient safety, and why ensuring representative clinical trial data is critical for global equity. He emphasizes that while innovation creates headlines, scaling is what creates true value, and success depends on building strong foundations that support researchers worldwide.

Matt also shares his insights on the future of AI in biopharma, busts myths about hype versus impact, points to challenges of change, and offers advice for early-career professionals: build depth, embrace AI, and be useful.

Tune in to hear how AI and data science are transforming the future of drug discovery at Merck!