Google, GOOGL, DeepMind has grand ambitions to ‘cure all diseases’ with AI
Alphabet’s low-profile drug discovery company, Isomorphic Labs, is preparing to enter a new phase: testing its AI-developed drug candidates in human clinical trials. According to Colin Murdoch—who leads Isomorphic and also serves as Chief Business Officer at Google DeepMind—the company’s efforts are nearing a pivotal turning point.
“There are scientists and researchers in our King’s Cross offices right now, working hand-in-hand with AI systems to engineer cancer drugs,” Murdoch said during an interview in Paris. “This is no longer theory—it’s happening.”
After years of groundwork, Murdoch confirmed that first-in-human trials are on the horizon.
“We’re approaching the moment when we start putting these therapies into real clinical settings,” he said. “We’re hiring aggressively and getting the infrastructure in place. We’re very close.”
Isomorphic Labs emerged from DeepMind in 2021, following the success of AlphaFold—an AI system that revolutionized biology by predicting protein structures with unprecedented accuracy. What began as a breakthrough in protein folding soon expanded into modeling molecular interactions, including how proteins bind with DNA or drugs. That opened the door to using AI not just for discovery, but for end-to-end drug design.
“This is what gave rise to Isomorphic,” said Murdoch. “AlphaFold showed us that AI could crack some of the hardest problems in life sciences. We wanted to go further—into actual drug creation.”
The momentum continued in 2024, when Isomorphic struck major partnerships with Novartis and Eli Lilly shortly after unveiling AlphaFold 3. Then in early 2025, the company raised $600 million in outside funding, with Thrive Capital leading the round—its first-ever external investment.
The vision? To build a next-generation drug design platform that marries AI engineers with seasoned pharmaceutical scientists to develop medicines with greater speed, accuracy, and affordability.
As part of its partnerships, Isomorphic helps optimize external drug pipelines—but it’s also developing its own proprietary candidates in areas like cancer and immunology, with the intention of licensing them out after early-phase trials.
“We’re not just supporting pharma partners,” Murdoch said. “We also launch internal programs, identify critical unmet needs, design new drugs, and plan to take them into early trials ourselves. We’re not there yet—but we’re making real strides.”
He pointed out that traditional drug development is a slow, high-risk, and expensive endeavor—often costing billions with low odds of success. Isomorphic’s hope is that its platform can fundamentally reshape that math.
“It’s about speed, cost, and confidence,” Murdoch said. “We want researchers to move forward knowing with near-certainty that what they’re working on will succeed in humans.”