CEO Werner Baumann admits he was skeptical at first as to whether the German group had the necessary know-how to manufacture vaccines but the firm's expertise in the development of biotech products has strengthened his belief Bayer can deliver.

As part of its big data initiative, the European Medicines Agency is supporting projects that will help identify appropriate real-world data sources for regulatory decision making.

Two European pharmaceutical companies, UCB and Merck KGaA, are exploring artificial intelligence in different ways, the first for drug discovery and the second on a fundamental level.