An AI biotech CEO sets the record straight on AI drug development hype Peyton Greenside, CEO of BigHat Biosciences, gets real about what AI can and can’t do

https://www.statnews.com/2026/05/26/ai-biotech-bighat-biosciences-ceo-on-ai-drug-development-hype/?utm_campaign=the_readout&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_z0rAgkGSDVZQwtFqwfJhR1hLNostdtp2-Djy1wNPSXMLbxuluLphCOmt-26mjsC7lED2ySkg5kQex2tLqzortS3JUFA&_hsmi=420539245&utm_content=420539245&utm_source=hs_email By Brittany TrangMay 26, 2026 Health Tech Reporter An AI biotech CEO sets the record straight BigHat Biosciences CEO Peyton Greenside has a refreshingly unsentimental take on AI drug discovery hype: designing a protein in six hours — or even 20 minutes — is the easy part. The hard part, she argues, is everything that comes afterward: validating molecules, engineering them into actual drugs, testing toxicity, manufacturing them, and proving they work in humans. Speaking with STAT’s Brittany Trang, Greenside said the real opportunity with AI isn’t cranking out endless simple antibodies faster than China or flashy de novo design startups. Instead, the goal is to engineer highly sophisticated multispecific molecules capable of hitting difficult biology that conventional antibodies can’t safely target. “We’re in a business where success is really low frequency, right — most things fail. So how do you climb percentages of probability of success towards what you want?” she said.