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Isomorphic Labs, a four-year-old drug discovery startup owned by Google parent Alphabet, plans to have a drug designed by artificial intelligence in clinical trials by the end of this year, founder Sir Demis Hassabis said. said.
“We’re looking at all the big disease areas, including oncology, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and we think we’ll have the first treatment by the end of this year,” he said at a financial presentation at the World Economic Event. -Said in an interview with the Times. forum.
“Normally, it takes an average of five to 10 years to discover one drug. And we could probably accelerate that rate by a factor of 10, which would be an incredible revolution in human health.” said Hassabis, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in October with colleague John Jumper and biochemist David Baker.
Isomorphic was spun out of Google’s AI research arm Google DeepMind in 2021, but remains a wholly owned subsidiary of parent company Alphabet. The startup’s potential is attracting large pharmaceutical partners eager to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the expensive drug development process.
Hassabis previously told the FT that his team was working on six drug development programs with Eli Lilly and Novartis.
Hassabis, who is also CEO of Google DeepMind, said in a wide-ranging interview that a prototype of the search giant’s AI assistant, known as Project Astra, will likely be available to consumers later this year. He described a near future in which “billions” of AI agents will “negotiate with each other on behalf of vendors and customers” within three years, which will require a rethinking of the web itself. said.
He also called for more vigilance and coordination among major AI developers racing to build artificial general intelligence. He warned that this technology could threaten human civilization if it gets out of control or is reused by “bad actors.” . . For harmful purposes. ”
Hassabis said the ultimate goal of Google DeepMind is to create artificial general intelligence, or “a system that can exercise all the cognitive abilities of humans.” Despite the “hype” on social media that artificial intelligence is on the horizon, true AGI is still 5 to 10 years away.
“If something is possible and worth doing, people will do it,” Hassabis said. “With the advent of AI, that point has already passed. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. . . . So we have to try to get it out into the world in the safest way possible.”
