SK bioscience said it will lead the Gates Foundation-funded “Research Optimization & Trial Outcome Recommender” (ROTOR) project, an AI initiative intended to speed up and improve decision-making in vaccine development. The company says the platform will analyze clinical and scientific data produced during vaccine research to help researchers decide how to advance candidate vaccines. SK bioscience will work with PATH, a global health nonprofit, and Slalom, a consulting firm; PR Newswire also mentions SK AX as part of the collaboration. The sources describe a specific challenge in vaccine development: decisions about whether to proceed to large, costly Phase 3 trials often rely on earlier Phase 2 results, but for some vaccines those choices are difficult because scientists lack reliable biological markers (correlates of protection) that predict whether a vaccine will work, or because laboratory tests can yield inconsistent results. SK bioscience says the AI platform is designed to reduce uncertainty and “guesswork” by making the progression decisions more evidence-based. The project is expected to initially be built and tested using rotavirus vaccine data from SK bioscience, and the planned data sources are described as including PATH-related data.