RALEIGH, N.C. — There’s been a lot of debate about artificial intelligence lately. One company that has an office in Durham and other parts of the country is using AI to help advance scientific research. 

Dotmatics is a scientific research and development software company working to connect science and data through its cloud-based platform and application. 

Alister Campbell, vice president and global head of science and technology with the company, says AI impacts the pharmaceutical industry in many ways, including the cost that it would take to put a drug on the market.

“As you can imagine, developing a drug takes a hell of a long time — we’re talking in decades, most commonly — and it costs a lot of money, anywhere from $2 to $6 billion," he said. "Our customers want to reduce that cost. By using AI, we can help those scientists reduce those times by identifying the target and giving them the best success."

Campbell says the failure rate in clinical studies is so high that it adds to other expenses.

“So what we want to do is help our customers reduce that failure rate so that they’re not spending money on studies that are going to fail," he said.

AI helps determine what drug will give them the best chance of success, Campbell said.

Some scientists recently have raised fears about AI's destructive capabilities.

“What’s really important is to see how it’s being used in research," Campbell said. "The quality of AI is only as good as the data that you feed it.”