Google spinoff Isomorphic Labs races to AI-design cancer drugs

Isomorphic Labs, a spinoff from Google DeepMind, is using AI to design new drugs for cancer, immune, and inflammatory diseases. In an interview, company President Max Jaderberg stated that the research team aims to use models to predict how drug molecules interact with other molecules in the human body, reducing the cost of trial-and-error in traditional R&D and developing new molecules that work at lower doses. He expects AI to become widely adopted in drug design within the next five years. In February, the company unveiled IsoDDE, its drug design engine, claiming it outperforms AlphaFold 3 in accuracy for certain molecular structure prediction tasks. Isomorphic Labs has established R&D partnerships with Novartis, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson and is advancing preclinical studies for its own projects. Jaderberg noted that the company is building a clinical development team but did not provide a timeline for initiating human trials. External researchers caution that strong predictions from computational models do not equate to safety and efficacy in the human body. Biological systems are complex, and candidate drugs may still fail in experimental and clinical trials. Isomorphic Labs’ goal is to ultimately develop and deliver drugs to patients itself; achieving this vision depends on subsequent trial results rather than model performance alone.