In terms of application prospects, AI pharmaceuticals have entered a critical stage of large-scale development and paradigm transformation in 2026, showing four clear development trends and becoming the core engine driving the high-quality development of the pharmaceutical industry. First, the role positioning has achieved a leap forward; AI has upgraded from an "auxiliary tool" in traditional drug R&D to a "core innovation engine", gradually breaking the curse of the traditional "double ten law" for new drug R&D and becoming a key force reshaping the industry development pattern [1]. Second, the application scenarios continue to expand, from the current preclinical R&D link to the entire industrial chain such as clinical trial optimization, production quality control, drug approval, and post-marketing monitoring, realizing the integrated coexistence of biopharmaceuticals and AI [1]. Third, the industrial ecosystem is becoming increasingly improved. Policy support, capital increase and technological iteration form a joint force; all global top pharmaceutical companies have laid out AI pharmaceutical-related cooperation, and the transaction scale continues to rise. At the same time, the collaborative innovation model of industry, university, research and medicine is constantly maturing, promoting the rapid transformation of technological achievements [1][3][4]. Fourth, development bottlenecks are gradually resolved. By building an integrated "data-computing-model-application" platform, integrating multi-source standardized data, and creating a multi-agent collaborative R&D model, systematic problems such as data islands, scattered tools, and broken processes are effectively solved, promoting the transformation of AI pharmaceuticals from "single-point application" to "full-process empowerment" [2]. In the long run, the global market size of AI pharmaceuticals is expected to exceed 500 billion US dollars, the Chinese market will enter a period of high-speed growth with a compound annual growth rate of more than 15%, and domestic AI pharmaceutical enterprises are expected to achieve double improvement in performance and valuation, driving the industry into a new development stage [3].
In terms of compliance and market, the centralized procurement rules have been optimized, with price protection for emergency rescue drugs and innovative drugs, and "quality-price linkage" replacing "only low price". At the same time, the "medical insurance + commercial insurance" multi-payment system has been gradually improved, solving the payment problem of high-priced innovative drugs, driving the industry to bid farewell to "low-price involution" and enter a cycle of value return.
