Did you ever wonder where all the drugs, which you can get at a pharmacy, come from? Who makes them, and how? Well, there is no easy answer, because the process of drug discovery and development is a very complex, expensive, and challenging journey, riddled with many risks and failures. This holds true for all types of drugs, from a simple pill to an mRNA vaccine or a gene therapy. Today, scientists support this process with a variety of AI applications, cutting-edge technologies, automation, and a huge amount of data. But can the race for new medicines and cures succeed only through more technology, or do we need to rethink the entire process? Let’s take a look at how the drug discovery and development process has worked so far, and how this entire process is changing – for better or worse.