R&D discovery informatics program

Context

An AI program in drug discovery informatics. Two alignment axes decide it: GxP/validation sign off from Regulatory QA (a hard gate), and the trust of bench scientists who will simply ignore a tool they don't believe.

The decision

Two gates, not one: the Regulatory QA validation gate is formal and the bench scientist trust gate is informal, miss either and the program is shelved regardless of model quality.

What most miss

Teams optimize for the sponsor and forget scientists can't be ordered to trust a model. In R&D, informal adoption authority outweighs org power, the bench decides in practice.

Stakes

Win Regulatory but lose the bench and the tool ships to an empty room; win the bench but skip validation and it never ships.