Sakshi Garg

Sakshi Garg, PhD leads biology strategy for AI-driven drug discovery (AIDD) in the central Science & Technology Office of Merck KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany, where she works across the Healthcare and Life Science sectors. Her focus is the biology that AI models depend on. She drives the AIDD biology roadmap, defining which assay systems, data types, and experimental designs produce decision-grade input rather than simply more data. In parallel, as product manager for Merck KGaA’s Lab-as-a-Product initiative, she is responsible for turning lab capabilities into products: shaping what gets built, for whom, and how it scales across the organization. That work draws on close to a decade in oncology drug discovery and expertise in phenomics, Cell Painting, high-content imaging, 3D organoids, and microphysiological systems — the modalities where automation, imaging throughput, and machine learning now converge. Having worked hands-on with these systems, she brings a practitioner’s view of