Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are already being actively used in drug discovery to evaluate potential binding of small-molecule drugs to proteins, but there's potential for the technologies to be used on the development side as well, especially in hard-to-treat diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

The American Society of Hematology meeting closed yesterday and served to shine the light on the latest research and progress of new therapies targeting hematological malignancies as well as other serious blood disorders. Specifically, a great deal of attention was focused on the treatment of blood cancers and, judging by the increase in value of the BioWorld Cancer index, investors and analysts alike were impressed with what they heard.

After dropping to its lowest valuation at the end of September, the BioWorld Neurological Diseases index, a price-weighted index of public biopharmaceutical companies that are focused on developing therapies to treat neurological diseases, got on a roll and climbed 22% during the next two months. However, a surprising trial failure reported by Sage Therapeutics Inc. last week served to eat into those index gains.