Life Sciences DNA Podcast

Drew McCormick, head of data and analytics at Eversana, sits down with Nagaraja Srivatsan to trace the company’s AI journey from classic predictive modeling in its data and analytics business to an enterprise-wide strategy. He describes how Eversana is building on a strong data foundation to tackle challenges such as patient identification, while also rethinking workflows, governance, and talent to ensure AI delivers value in a highly regulated environment.

Scott Cenci, chief information and data officer for Acadia Pharmaceuticals, sits down with Nagaraja Srivatsan to discuss how generative and agentic AI are reshaping biopharma throughout the enterprise from R&D and clinical development to the commercial field. He discusses how it is changing the roles of people like medical writers into medical editors, why every knowledge worker will soon manage AI agents as part of their job; and the hard problems leaders face in prioritizing AI investments, avoiding experiment fatigue, governing enterprise data, and building a culture of continuous learning.​

Karthik Raman, co-founder and CEO of Persist AI, sits down with the Nagaraja Srivatsan to discuss how robotics, AI, and cloud tech are supercharging drug formulation to address a bottleneck in pharma R&D. He explains how robots outperform humans in consistency and scale, igniting a flywheel of faster prototyping, richer data, and AI-orchestrated workflows that will propel biopharma innovation amid rising drug complexity.

Gabi Tarcic, vice president of product for Evogene, sits down with Srivatsan Nagaraja about applying AI to small molecule drug discovery, the cultural and operational changes required for researchers to adopt these tools, and how AI-driven platforms can improve the efficiency of pharma R&D.

Anita Modi, CEO and founder of Peer AI, joins Srivatsan Nagaraja to discuss the transformative impact of agentic AI on document creation for pharmaceutical companies. She discusses the cultural challenges of integrating AI into a traditionally cautious industry, the need for change management, and why it’s critical to embed human judgment alongside machine intelligence.​

Ronel Veksler, co-founder and CEO of PromiseBio, sits down with Amar Drawid to discuss the company’s AI-enabled proteomics platform, and how post-translational modifications of proteins represent a new frontier for precision medicine in autoimmune diseases; and how AI is enabling deep profiling of the epiproteome for better disease subtyping, improved prediction of drug response, and more personalized therapeutic strategies.

Aaron Cohen, Head of Research Oncology, Clinical Data for Flatiron Health, sits down with Amar Drawid to discuss Flatiron’s use of large language models to extract and analyze unstructured data from electronic health records. Cohen discusses how AI‑extracted data can replicate human‑curated outcomes across multiple cancer types, paving the way for faster, richer insights to guide both clinical decision‑making and drug development.

Manfred Stapff, founder and principal of Candid Advisory, sits down with Amar Drawid to discuss the potential of real-world data to accelerate drug development and improve regulatory strategies. He discusses why real-world data can provide insights may miss, shed light on treatment effects once approved, and how it may one day reshape the drug approval process.

Stephen Pyke, chief clinical data and digital officer at Parexel, sits down with Srivatsan Nagaraja to discuss the adoption of AI technologies in clinical development. He highlights the importance of workflow integration, the challenges of change management, and how to prepare organizations for an AI-driven future.

Mohan Uttarwar, CEO 1Cell.Ai, sits down with Amar Drawid to discuss how his company is transforming cancer diagnostics and care by combining cutting-edge molecular science with advanced AI. He talks about how the company’s single-cell multi-omics platform provides real-time, precision insights, enhances patient selection in clinical trials, and delivers actionable information for oncologists.