We spoke to LightOx CEO, Dr Sam Whitehouse, to understand how AI is evolving across the industry and what it means in practice for both the business and the patients it aims to serve.
Artificial intelligence is no longer a future concept for the life sciences sector and is already reshaping how drugs are discovered, developed and brought to market. Recent reporting has highlighted how pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using AI to reduce timelines and costs, signalling a shift in how the industry approaches innovation.
For biotech companies like LightOx, the question is not whether AI will have an impact, but how it can be used effectively and responsibly to accelerate progress, while still ensuring the science is robust and the outcomes are right for patients.
From efficiency tool to innovation driver
At a day-to-day level, the impact of AI is already being felt across teams.
“I think if you take it from the ground up, the way we work has most definitely changed,” Sam explains. “AI supports so many areas across the business currently including how we report, how we run meetings and how we pull information together.”
Beyond the operational gains, AI is also becoming a much more powerful tool at a technical level too.
Sam adds, “When you get into the technical side, it’s about asking what we should do next, where we apply our drugs and how we look at new targets which allows us to think much more broadly. In drug development, this shift is significant with AI being used across many areas. This includes the analysis of large datasets, to model new compounds and identify potential targets far more quickly than traditional approaches, helping to shorten the lifecycle of development and reduce cost.”
Speed for business, safety for patients
When it comes to summarising its impact in simple terms, Sam is clear on the distinction between benefits for business and benefits for patients. “For business, it’s speed. For patients, it’s safety.”
“AI enables faster access to information, quicker decision making and more efficient use of resources. But its real value lies in how it can support better outcomes for patients. Because the quicker we can get a new drug to market, the better. But it’s also about having more information and being able to use that properly. AI helps you analyse things like clinical data in a way that can highlight new opportunities or things you might not have seen. It’s not biased towards what you expect to see, so sometimes it will pull out something you hadn’t considered, unlocking new opportunities.”
A tool that requires considered use
Despite its potential, Sam is clear that AI should not be treated as a definitive answer, with the balance between opportunity and caution being key.
“A careful scepticism is always a healthy way of looking at it,” he says. “AI is fantastic in many ways but it’s something you should never be fully reliant on; you still need to sense check everything, with the quality of data being critical too. Because if it’s analysing poor data sets, then it’s only going to give you poor data back, so first and foremost it’s imperative to understand where your data is coming from and whether you trust it. AI can accelerate decision making, but human expertise is still essential to interpret and validate outputs.”
Two sides of the LightOx story
At LightOx, AI is influencing two distinct areas of the business.
On the therapeutic side, it is supporting the development of its light activated treatment for early stage oral cancer, helping the team analyse complex biological data, model compounds and refine their approach as they move towards clinical trials. In this setting, AI plays a key role in improving precision, understanding patient response and identifying the safest and most effective pathways forward.
Alongside this, LightOx is also exploring applications of its technology in wound care, including work linked to the NATO DIANA programme, a defence innovation initiative focused on accelerating technologies that can support real world operational challenges.
This has opened up new ways of thinking about how LightOx’s light activated technology could be used beyond traditional healthcare settings, particularly in environments where access to immediate medical treatment is limited.
“In a civilian setting, you might be treating something like a chronic wound,” Sam explains. But if you take that into a defence setting, you’re looking at how to treat injuries in the field, where people might not be able to access care in the same way.”
In this context, the role of AI shifts slightly. It becomes less about long term modelling and more about adaptability, understanding real world conditions and responding to rapidly changing environments where speed, reliability and decision making are critical. Thus, opening up new perspectives on how technology is applied and how AI is used in different contexts.
Sam adds, “Working across both environments has been really eye opening. You start to see where AI is useful, where it isn’t, and how you validate what you’re looking at.”
A rapidly evolving landscape
One thing that is certain is the pace of change when it comes to AI.
“It’s moving at breakneck speed,” says Sam. The more people use it, the more data it has, and the faster it develops, which is exciting.”
For LightOx, the focus is not on replacing existing processes, but on embedding AI into everyday ways of working, using it where it adds real value.
“I think it just becomes part of how we work. In the same way we don’t use typewriters anymore, AI will become another tool we use to enhance what we do. If you give it enough good data, it can start to point you towards new things to test or new directions to explore.”
“It’s like being given a power saw instead of a hand saw,” Sam says. “It’s quicker and more efficient, but you still need to know how to use it.”
For LightOx, the focus remains on using AI to support better decisions, strengthen innovation and ultimately improve outcomes for patients.
Because while the technology is evolving rapidly, the goal remains the same, to develop effective, accessible treatments that make a real difference to patients’ lives across the globe.
