Isomorphic Labs, a Google DeepMind spinoff, is set to see its AI-designed drugs enter clinical trials this year, according to Nobel Prize-winning CEO Demis Hassabis.

“We’ll hopefully have some AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of the year,” Hassabis shared during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “That’s the plan.”

The company aims to drastically reduce the drug discovery timeline from years to mere weeks or months, leveraging breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Hassabis, along with DeepMind scientist John Jumper and a US professor, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their innovative work in predicting protein structures.

While AI's ability to analyze vast data sets holds promise for speeding up drug development, a December report by Bloomberg Intelligence highlighted a cautious adoption of the technology by major pharmaceutical companies. The report, led by analyst Andrew Galler, noted that initial data for clinical candidates has been mixed.

Despite this, partnerships between tech firms and pharmaceutical companies are growing. In 2023, Isomorphic Labs entered into strategic research collaborations with Eli Lilly & Co. and Novartis AG.

Founded in 2021 to commercialize DeepMind’s AI in drug discovery, Isomorphic Labs builds on the success of AlphaFold, DeepMind’s revolutionary tool for predicting protein patterns. Since its launch in 2018, AlphaFold has evolved to its third iteration, now capable of modeling a wide range of molecular structures, including DNA and RNA, and predicting their interactions.