Experts from AstraZeneca, Bayer, Novartis, Vertex and more gathered to discuss AI agents, accelerating clinical trials and skills gaps
Boston, U.S. 3 December 2025: The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit that advocates for greater collaboration in life sciences R&D has released data indicating a growing “scientific content crisis” that is limiting the accuracy and adoption of AI in R&D. The poll found that more than 1 in 4 life science professionals (27%) do not know what scientific content their organization’s AI or LLM systems use or rely only on titles and abstracts. Meanwhile, only around 1 in 3 (36%) are plugging internal documents into models. As a result, many AI systems are being built on incomplete or insufficiently traceable scientific evidence, reducing confidence in the reliability of AI outputs. The poll was conducted at the Pistoia Alliance’s annual US conference held in Boston, which convened more than 170 experts from pharma, technology and academia to explore AI challenges and the guardrails needed for its safe use.
“It’s clear from discussions at the conference that many AI models are not yet drawing on the full range of scientific evidence needed to deliver authoritative results. Many organizations are still in a learning phase when it comes to both data and governance and, given the stakes for patient safety, that cannot be ignored. Our poll also showed that 38% of respondents say their copyright and licensing policies are unclear or not enforced, meaning many could also be at risk of fines in an already costly drug development process,” said Neal Dunkinson, Senior Director, CCC (Copyright Clearance Center). “To ensure models are grounded in the highest-quality and most complete scientific datasets, the industry must ensure any datasets being used are AI-ready: meaning properly structured, licensed and transparent.”
Another theme that emerged from the poll findings was the need for stronger benchmarking and governance for AI agents to give organizations full visibility over which data models are learning from. The Alliance’s poll data reinforced this, with half (50%) of respondents identifying the lack of shared verification standards as the biggest barrier to agent adoption. In light of the findings, Robert Gill, Agentic AI program lead at the Pistoia Alliance, called on attendees to become founding members of the Alliance’s agentic AI project to shape the standards for safe, scalable agentic AI and lead the way as the technology rapidly evolves. Other highlights from the conference included:
- Accelerating clinical trials and late-stage R&D: EPAM showed how AI can streamline clinical operations, the Michael J. Fox Foundation demonstrated how knowledge graphs can speed Parkinson’s research and AbbVie discussed AI’s role in improving pharmacovigilance.
- Roundtable on practical AI adoption: Elsevier brought together experts from companies including Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bayer, J&J and Takeda to discuss how to make AI tools that work in real world research settings. The group agreed that AI implementation depends on problem-led, intuitive design and seamless workflow integration.
- Change management and skills shortages as R&D bottlenecks: Organizations from the Alliance’s change management community including Eli Lilly, Kalleid, Elsevier, Takeda and Ziffo stressed that AI success depends as much on people and incentives as on technology. This echoed findings from Pistoia’s Lab of the Future survey, where more than a third (34%) cited a shortage of skilled talent as a barrier to AI adoption.
“It’s notable that the same concerns around AI trust, transparency and skills were raised at both our US and European conferences. These issues are clearly universal across the life sciences community,” commented Dr Becky Upton, President of the Pistoia Alliance. “By working together on common standards, data quality and practical implementation, the life sciences industry will move forward with confidence. The Pistoia Alliance exists to facilitate this collaboration, and we’re excited to carry these discussions into our spring meeting in London.”
The Pistoia Alliance is holding its spring annual conference and at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, April 13-16, 2026. To learn more about Pistoia Alliance membership and the opportunity to participate in its portfolio of 30 projects and communities, visit www.pistoiaalliance.org