Artificial intelligence has morphed from a buzzword referencing a popular curiosity to a series of national security and competitiveness considerations, which was reflected in the tone of a recent hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Venture Capital firm Sofinnova Partners has launched Sofinnova.AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that it hopes will transform its approach to life sciences investment. The platform harnesses billions of data points spanning scientific literature, emerging therapeutic fields, and technological breakthroughs, and connects them with the firm’s own proprietary knowledge accumulated over 50 years.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is clearly a more activist agency of late, although much of that activism has been around mergers and acquisitions. The latest FTC move, however, deals with investigative authorities that will be applied toward artificial intelligence (AI), which Katie Bond of Keller & Heckerman LLP said will give the agency considerable powers of discovery regardless of the merits of the enforcement action.

Astrazeneca plc launched a health-tech business aimed at bringing to market digital technological solutions that will optimize clinical trial design and delivery. The company, called Evinova, will offer solutions to reduce the time and cost of developing new drugs, bring care closer to patients at home and reduce the burden on health systems.