Science & Health8/10
Hassabis Says AI Could Cure Disease in Ten Years; Isomorphic Raises $2.1B
Ole Lehmann outlines Demis Hassabis's plan to use AI for drug discovery, from AlphaFold's protein structure work to Isomorphic Labs' new $2.1 billion round led by Thrive Capital. The post says its first AI-designed cancer drug enters human trials this year.
Original post · 3 min read
Demis Hassabis says he can cure every disease in 10 years.
Most people roll their eyes when they hear this, but I don't.
Demis is the guy who just won the Nobel Prize for solving protein folding with AI (a problem biologists had been stuck on for 50 years).
But that was just one milestone in his much grander plan.
In 2010, he founded DeepMind with a 2-part mission: "solve intelligence, then use it to solve everything else."
Step 1: make AI good enough to do real science.
Step 2: point that AI at humanity's biggest problems.
Step one was AlphaFold.
He used AI to figure out the 3D shape of every protein in nature (which is basically what every drug attaches to).
Demis said it would have taken "a billion years of PhD time" to do by hand.
Step two is curing all disease.
And as of today, step two is fully funded.
Isomorphic Labs (his AI drug discovery company inside Google) just raised $2.1B led by Thrive Capital.
Here's where the money goes and what Demis thinks happens next:
> Drug discovery currently takes 5-10 years and costs billions per drug. That math is why most diseases don't have good treatments today.
> AI fixes the math. Their drug design engine compresses development from years to months. Maybe weeks.
> Isomorphic's first AI-designed cancer drug enters human trials this year.
> Their pipeline expands beyond the current 17 programs across cancer, immune diseases, and heart disease into more health domains.
> The endgame is personalized medicine: drugs designed overnight for your specific biology and your specific disease.
That last one is the whole point.
Today's drugs are mass-produced for an "average" patient who doesn't really exist.
So most existing treatments work inconsistently from person to person, and most rare diseases never get a treatment at all (no market = no drug).
When drug design gets fast and cheap, that whole calculus flips.
Cancer variants get drugs designed for that specific variant, rare diseases get treatments because economics stop mattering, and drug-resistant infections get new drugs faster than they can evolve.
That's what curing every disease actually looks like.
Now imagine what your life looks like in 2036.
A doctor draws your blood, sequences your genome, sends your disease profile to an AI.
By morning the AI has designed a custom drug for your specific biology.
Side effects, dosage, drug interactions all worked out before you take the first pill.
You and your kids never see a cancer ward.
That's what $2.1B is buying today.
Demis was right about AlphaFold.
If you consider the possibility that he's right again, every disease alive today is on borrowed time.
Most people roll their eyes when they hear this, but I don't.
Demis is the guy who just won the Nobel Prize for solving protein folding with AI (a problem biologists had been stuck on for 50 years).
But that was just one milestone in his much grander plan.
In 2010, he founded DeepMind with a 2-part mission: "solve intelligence, then use it to solve everything else."
Step 1: make AI good enough to do real science.
Step 2: point that AI at humanity's biggest problems.
Step one was AlphaFold.
He used AI to figure out the 3D shape of every protein in nature (which is basically what every drug attaches to).
Demis said it would have taken "a billion years of PhD time" to do by hand.
Step two is curing all disease.
And as of today, step two is fully funded.
Isomorphic Labs (his AI drug discovery company inside Google) just raised $2.1B led by Thrive Capital.
Here's where the money goes and what Demis thinks happens next:
> Drug discovery currently takes 5-10 years and costs billions per drug. That math is why most diseases don't have good treatments today.
> AI fixes the math. Their drug design engine compresses development from years to months. Maybe weeks.
> Isomorphic's first AI-designed cancer drug enters human trials this year.
> Their pipeline expands beyond the current 17 programs across cancer, immune diseases, and heart disease into more health domains.
> The endgame is personalized medicine: drugs designed overnight for your specific biology and your specific disease.
That last one is the whole point.
Today's drugs are mass-produced for an "average" patient who doesn't really exist.
So most existing treatments work inconsistently from person to person, and most rare diseases never get a treatment at all (no market = no drug).
When drug design gets fast and cheap, that whole calculus flips.
Cancer variants get drugs designed for that specific variant, rare diseases get treatments because economics stop mattering, and drug-resistant infections get new drugs faster than they can evolve.
That's what curing every disease actually looks like.
Now imagine what your life looks like in 2036.
A doctor draws your blood, sequences your genome, sends your disease profile to an AI.
By morning the AI has designed a custom drug for your specific biology.
Side effects, dosage, drug interactions all worked out before you take the first pill.
You and your kids never see a cancer ward.
That's what $2.1B is buying today.
Demis was right about AlphaFold.
If you consider the possibility that he's right again, every disease alive today is on borrowed time.
Demis Hassabis @demishassabisI’ve always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human health.
That work started with AlphaFold, and now at @IsomorphicLabs with the mission to reimagine drug discovery and one day solve all disease!
We are turbocharging that goal with $2.1B in new funding.
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