In this episode of Beyond Biotech, biotech entrepreneur and Convoke Bio co-founder Alex Telford shares his journey from life sciences consulting to founding a company that leverages AI to transform drug development. He discusses how generative AI and digital tools could revolutionize knowledge work, streamline clinical trials, and even change regulatory approaches in biotech.

Key Points:

Alex Telford explores how AI can transform biotech by automating knowledge work and enabling faster, smarter drug development. From digital twins to regulatory reform, his vision challenges the industry to rethink its approach to innovation.

• AI as a New Type of Knowledge Worker: At Convoke Bio, Telford is building AI systems that act as autonomous knowledge workers, capable of synthesizing complex scientific and regulatory data—freeing up human teams and accelerating drug development decisions.
• From Friction to Flow in Pharma: Telford identifies a major bottleneck in the industry: knowledge fragmentation and manual data synthesis. His AI-driven tools aim to reduce information friction and speed up decisions between clinical trial phases.
• AI’s Broader Role in Drug Discovery: Beyond LLMs, Telford discusses how traditional ML models are being used to predict liver toxicity or design better biomarkers—applications that could prevent late-stage clinical trial failures.
• Regulation- Barrier or Catalyst?: Telford sees regulation as both necessary and a challenge. He argues for a flexible framework that balances innovation and safety—especially crucial for enabling advances like gene therapies and reducing drug development costs.
• Rethinking Drug Discovery Success Rates: One of Telford’s provocative questions: how many potentially effective human drugs fail in preclinical models due to species differences? He calls for better predictive models or even digital twins to reduce false negatives.
• The Power of Questions in Biotech: Telford’s blog post of open-ended questions reflects his belief that asking the right questions may be the bottleneck to progress. Writing, he says, helps clarify fuzzy thinking and deepen understanding—a practice central to both his work and creativity.