Chris Arendt, CSO of Takeda, likens the AI overhaul at the pharma to gutting and rebuilding an old house, from the plumbing and electrical up, while you’re still living there. In a Fireside Chat at Grand Rounds U.S. in Seattle, Arendt sat down with Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn to discuss how Takeda is integrating AI across R&amp;D, in and beyond the science, while still executing on the active programs in drug development. View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/659807 #ArtificialIntelligence #PharmaInnovation #DrugDevelopment #DigitalTransformation #ResearchAndDevelopment 00:00 - Introduction 02:07 - Revamping Takeda for AI 19:03 - Teams &amp; Talent 26:43 - Alliances 32:50 - Q&amp;A

Ep. 112 - Chris Arendt on rebuilding Takeda for AI

The BioCentury Show

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The BioCentury Show

## Participants

- **Selina Koch** (BioCentury)
- **Chris Arendt** (Takeda)

## Transcript

This is the BioCentury Show. Brought to you by BioCentury Grand Rounds. Join BioCentury this September in Amsterdam for the second Grand Rounds Europe, an R&D forum focused on translational science at the interface of industry and academia. Hello and welcome to the BioCentury Show. I am Selina Koch, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at BioCentury.

And this is a special edition of the show brought to you from our Grand Rounds US meeting in Seattle, where I sat down in a fireside chat with Chris Arendt, the CSO of Takeda. We discussed how Takeda is bringing AI into its R&D and its broader business in and beyond the science in a session titled, This AI Moment, Two Steps Forward and One Step Back.

The session was recorded live and is followed by audience questions. Enjoy the show. Good morning, everybody. So what an absolute pleasure to kick off the session with Chris Arendt, the CSO at Takeda. Absolute highlight for me to be able to have this or continue, I should say, this conversation, right?

We've been having this conversation for a little while. And I think that, you know, in 2026, you know, what better way to start the day than by talking about AI, right?

I mean, I think that's the focus of what you and I will talk about. And based on our conversations, which sort of, as I said, sort of go back recently and a little bit further back than that, you know, I really feel that we're in this era of two steps forward and one step back.

I think there might be some people who put it the other way around. Yeah, you know, one forward and two back, but we'll see. So, you know, the reason I think about that, because I think that a lot of the discussion, especially at a place like Grand Rounds today, will be around how AI is used in discovery.

But you're a pharma company. I think we all want to know, as operators and, you know, running small and medium and different sizes businesses, you know, how you're thinking about it even more broadly than just, you know, I want to go broader than just discovery.

So, one of the things that we talked about was this idea that as you start to oversee and implement changes in how you do things with AI, each time you solve one thing, another thing comes up. So, can you talk a little bit about how you're approaching it and, you know, how you see this playing out?

Wow. I love that we're starting with AI and what an honor to be with you this morning for this discussion. I promise I'm not an agent, an AI agent, and I have not prepared through AI for this meeting. No, I think we're entering... If you need to ask Claude the answer, you can do that. Okay, I may need to. I've got him loaded up on my phone here. You know, for me, I guess I would say for us at Takeda, it feels very much like we are entering a new era of drug development.

I'd say in my three decades in the sciences, ...

Ep. 112 - Chris Arendt on rebuilding Takeda for AI

Transcript

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Ep. 112 - Chris Arendt on rebuilding Takeda for AI

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.