No Priors Ep. 140 | With Benchling Co-Founder and CEO Sajith Wickramasekara

ringing new drugs to market is a costly, time-consuming endeavor. On top of that, most medicines fail at some point in the research and development phase. Sarah Guo is joined by Sajith Wickramasekara, co-founder and CEO of Benchling, a company that has not only become the central system of record for biotech R&D, but uses AI agents to assist scientists to help fix this broken system. Sajith details the roadblocks that impede drug development and approval, the “dot com” bust occurring in biotech, and how AI agents and simulation can help scientists experiment faster. Plus, they talk about China’s competitive rise in the pharma space, and the unique challenges of building an interdisciplinary culture that merges the worlds of science and software. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to [email protected] Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @sajithw | @benchling Chapters: 00:00 – Sajith Wickramasekara Introduction 00:38 – Origin and Mission of Benchling 02:08 – The Drug Development Process 03:49 – Current State of the Biotech industry 08:46 – AI’s Role in Biotech 16:14 – Benchling AI and Its Impact 18:36 – The Future of AI in Biotech 26:28 – Debunking AI Drug Discovery Myths 28:50 – Data’s Role in Biotech 29:35 – The Importance of Tools in Pharma 31:28 – AI’s Impact on Scientific Research 34:55 – Building a Biotech Company 40:18 – Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Biotech 43:06 – Tech and Biotech: Learning from Each Other 48:16 – Conclusion