COVID heralds a faster future for drug development (if stakeholders can collaborate)

The 2021 WIRED Health conference took a broad view of the current pandemic situation, with speakers ranging from geneticists to intensive care doctors. But life sciences discussions seemed to generally be optimistic about the future of the world’s COVID response – whilst also acknowledging the difficult questions the sector now faces in the future.

Joanna Shields, CEO of BenevolentAI, noted that COVID-19 has marked the first pandemic response “defined by data sharing” and the rapid publication of research.