The AI-developed drug will be tested by the end of the year, says Google’s Hassabis

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Isomorphic Labs, a four-year-old drug discovery startup owned by Google parent Alphabet, will have a synthetic drug in trials by the end of this year, says its founder Sir Demis Hassabis.

“We are looking at oncology, heart, neurodegeneration, all major disease areas, and I think that by the end of this year, we will have our first drugs,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times at World Economic. Forum.

It usually takes five to 10 years (to discover) one drug. And maybe we can speed it up 10 times, which would be an incredible change in people’s lives,” he said. Hassabiswho won the Nobel Prize in chemistry with his colleague John Jumper and biochemist David Baker in October.

Isomorphic spun off from Google’s DeepMind in 2021, but remains a wholly owned subsidiary of its parent company, Alphabet. The ability to start a business has attracted large pharmaceutical partners, who are willing to cut costs and streamline the costly process of drug development.

Hassabis previously told the FT that his team was working on six drug development programs with Eli Lilly and Novartis.

In a wide-ranging interview, Hassabis, who is also the chief executive of Google DeepMind, said that a prototype of the search giant’s AI assistant, known as Project Astra, will likely be rolled out to customers later this year. He described the near future, within three years, when there will be “billions” of AI agents, “communicating on behalf of the seller and the buyer” and said that it will require a rethinking of the web itself.

He also called for awareness and cooperation among leaders AI developers compete to build general artificial intelligence. He warned that the technology could threaten human progress if it gets out of control or is reused by “bad actors . . . for dangerous purposes”.

The main goal of Google DeepMind is to create a general artificial intelligence, or “a system that can show all the mental powers that people have”, according to Hassabis, who said that despite the “hype ” of social media about the imminent, real AGI was here. it is still five to 10 years away.

Hassabis said: “If something is possible and worth doing, people will do it.” “We are past that time with AI, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. . . so we have to try and make sure to get that out into the world as safely as possible. ”