AI Breakthrough: Isomorphic Labs’ AI-Designed Drugs Enter Human Trials

In a landmark moment for the pharmaceutical industry and artificial intelligence, Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet company spun out of Google DeepMind, is preparing to initiate human clinical trials for its first AI-designed drug candidates. This significant step marks a crucial transition from theoretical promise to tangible patient impact, potentially ushering in a new era of accelerated and more efficient drug discovery.

Colin Murdoch, President of Isomorphic Labs and Chief Business Officer at Google DeepMind, confirmed that clinical trials are “very close,” following years of intensive development. “There are people sitting in our office in King’s Cross, London, working, and collaborating with AI to design drugs for cancer. That’s happening right now,” Murdoch told reporters in Paris, highlighting the immediate and real-world application of their technology.

Isomorphic Labs was founded in 2021, leveraging the foundational breakthrough of DeepMind’s AlphaFold, an AI system renowned for its unparalleled ability to predict protein structures with high accuracy. This capability has since evolved to model complex interactions between proteins and other molecules, including DNA and drugs – a critical aspect of drug design. “This was the inspiration for Isomorphic Labs,” Murdoch stated, emphasizing how AlphaFold’s success demonstrated the potential for AI to revolutionize drug discovery.

The traditional drug development process is notoriously lengthy, expensive, and fraught with high failure rates, often taking over a decade and costing billions with success rates as low as 10% in clinical trials. Isomorphic Labs aims to drastically improve these odds by combining advanced machine learning with deep pharmaceutical expertise. In April 2025, the company secured a substantial US$600 million in its first external funding round, led by Thrive Capital, further bolstering its mission to build a “world-class drug design engine.”

Isomorphic Labs is not only developing its own internal drug candidates, particularly in oncology and immunology, but also collaborates with pharmaceutical giants like Novartis and Eli Lilly, contributing to their existing drug programs. Murdoch envisions a future where drug discovery could be highly automated, enabling researchers to “click a button and out pops the design for a drug to address that disease.”

The impending human trials represent a pivotal test for AI’s capacity to deliver novel, effective therapies. The industry will be closely watching to see if Isomorphic Labs’ AI-driven approach can significantly reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with bringing life-saving medicines to patients, ultimately transforming global healthcare.