AI-generated drug candidates appear to be not as meticulously tested as those created through more traditional routes before receiving a patent, say U.S. legal experts who call for the evidentiary bar to be raised.

The combination of less preclinical testing and pre-emptive patent protection could hinder the development of high-quality drugs for the market, they warn in the journal Science .

Legal experts Janet Freilich from Boston University and Arti Rai from Duke University found that AI-derived patents tested fewer compounds in vivo and were significantly less likely to include essential safety studies before receiving patent protection.

They believe that granting a molecule patent too early to a firm with a speculative idea but no plan to test the molecule could dampen interes

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