Vinod Khosla Says AI Is Creating a ‘Hyperabundance’ of New Drugs, but Testing Is Still ‘18th-Century’

Snigdha Gairola

Sat, August 15, 2026 at 6:30 AM GMT+3 4 min read

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Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly expanding drug discovery, but traditional testing methods have failed to keep pace with the technology's progress.

AI and Human Tissue Drug Testing

On Wednesday, in a post on X, Khosla said AI has produced what he described as a "21st-century hyperabundance of potential new drugs and biological hypotheses," while drug testing still relies heavily on conventional animal studies.

He argued that the industry needs a more human-relevant approach to evaluating potential treatments.

"We are still using 18th-century style animal testing," Khosla wrote.

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He pointed to Vivodyne, a biotechnology company developing technology to test drugs using living human tissues at scale.

"Instead, @Vivodyne is evaluating drugs in living human tissues at industrial scale," Khosla said.

He also said he was excited to continue working with Vivodyne as the company develops its "Virtual Human" data center, which he said could eventually help researchers predict how patients will respond to treatments.

AI has created a 21st-century hyperabundance of potential new drugs and biological hypotheses, but we are still using 18th-century style animal testing.
Instead, @Vivodyne is evaluating drugs in living human tissues at industrial scale.
Excited to continue working with Vivodyne… pic.twitter.com/Xc1EwWQ5bB

— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) August 12, 2026

AI Accelerates Drug Discovery and Healthcare

Earlier, Anthropic, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Nvidia Corp. and Eli Lilly and Co. highlighted the growing role of AI in drug discovery and medical research.

Anthropic launched Claude Science, an AI workbench that combined scientific literature analysis, computational biology, code generation and large-scale computing, with access to more than 60 scientific skills and connectors

Takeda reported that its AI-developed psoriasis drug zasocitinib significantly outperformed Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Sotyktu in a Phase 3 trial, with more than 35% of patients achieving complete skin clearance at week 16.

Meanwhile, Nvidia and Eli Lilly announced a $1 billion AI co-innovation lab aimed at combining AI with biological research to accelerate drug development.

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock

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