If James Bond had a biotech lab, this would be it.
Alphabet’s not-so-secret drug-discovery arm, Isomorphic Labs, just made its official move from sci-fi dream to clinical reality, by announcing it's entering its first human trials. Their mission? Oh, just to solve every disease known to man with artificial intelligence. You know, casual Tuesday stuff.
This isn’t your regular Big Pharma outfit with pipettes and peer-reviewed dreams. This is DeepMind’s grown-up alter ego, now loaded with $600 million in fresh capital and an ego the size of the metaverse. Think AlphaFold, the AI that cracked protein folding like a Rubik’s cube on Adderall; but now pointed straight at cancer, autoimmune chaos, and every untreatable diagnosis your GP shrugs at.
The plan? Feed disease data into DeepMind’s all-knowing brain, let the algorithms do their thing, and then spit out custom compounds that make yesterday’s wonder drugs look like Flintstones vitamins.
Let’s break it down:
Trials Incoming
Isomorphic Labs is “very close” to human trials, says Colin Murdoch, their president and also DeepMind’s Chief Business Officer. (Translation: The lab coats are being laundered and the NDAs are locked.)
First stop: oncology. Because if you’re going to disrupt medicine, you might as well start with cancer.
How It Works (For the Nerds)
Using AlphaFold and a new class of AI models trained on the entire biochemical cosmos, Isomorphic is decoding the shape-shifting world of proteins. Why does that matter? Because proteins run your body like a tech bro runs a startup — badly, when they're dysfunctional.
If you can predict how they behave, you can design drugs that fix them before they cause chaos.
Isomorphic’s public mission is “to redefine drug discovery using the power of AI to create a new era of medicine” and yes, they’re actually doing it.
The Big Guns Are In
They’ve already inked deals with Novartis and Eli Lilly, who bring the pharmaceutical firepower and global distribution muscle. Meanwhile, Isomorphic brings the AI sauce that Big Pharma hasn’t figured out how to cook.
It’s like pairing Michelin-star chefs with ChatGPT, but for medicine.
What This Means for You
This could shrink the time it takes to develop a new drug from a decade to a few years. Or less. That means faster access to real cures for real problems, not just more Band-Aids in a bottle.
Oh, and this isn’t theoretical. Their first AI-designed drug could be injected into a real human within months.
Backed by the Billionaires
The $600M investment round (led by Thrive Capital) wasn’t just a vote of confidence, it was a loud signal to the old guard: adapt or die. This isn’t just about making better drugs. It’s about rewriting the entire medical playbook with code.
Isomorphic’s homepage reads like a manifesto: science, technology, and human health, at planetary scale. They're building a digital model of human biology itself. Because why stop at healing when you can map existence?
The BioHax Take
Let’s be clear: This is big. But it’s not your Plan B — yet.
We’re watching the future of medicine materialise in real time, but we’re not ditching our herbs, peptides, supplements or essential prescriptions. Not today. This is a moonshot, and moonshots need testing, regulating, trialling, failing, reworking then distributing.
So for now? Stay curious. Stay on your protocol. And keep an eye on this space because if this works, we’re looking at the end of “incurable.”
And maybe start Googling “AI-designed anti-aging stacks.”
Want more Breaking Wellness intel like this?
Explore the BioHax Brief or sign up for our no-BS newsletter with free gift
