London-based Isomorphic Labs, a spinoff of Google AI R&D subsidiary DeepMind, announced key agreements with Eli Lilly and Novartis to employ AI to identify novel drugs.
About $3 billion is in the agreements. Eli Lilly will pay Isomorphic $45 million upfront and up to $1.7 billion in performance milestones, minus royalties. Novartis will pay $37.5 million upfront, “select” research expenditures, and up to $1.2 billion (minus royalties) in performance-based incentives.
The news statement quoted DeepMind co-founder and Isomorphic CEO Demis Hassabis as saying, “We’re thrilled to embark on this partnership and apply our proprietary technology platform.” “Our shared commitment to innovative drug design and appreciation of cutting-edge science makes [these] partnerships particularly compelling.”
Novartis president of biomedical research Fiona Marshall said: “Cutting-edge AI technologies could transform how we discover new drugs and accelerate our ability to deliver life-changing medicines for patients. This cooperation uses our firms’ capabilities in AI, data science, medicinal chemistry, and deep disease area experience to unlock new AI-driven drug development possibilities.”
Isomorphic, a 2021 release from Hassabis under DeepMind parent company Alphabet, uses AlphaFold 2 AI to predict protein structures in the human body. Researchers aim to find novel medication delivery channels by discovering these structures.
Not perfect tech. AlphaFold sometimes makes apparent errors and is better as a “hypothesis generator” than a substitute for experimental evidence, according to a Nature Methods study. The model can provide relatively accurate protein predictions at a scale that conventional approaches cannot.
AlphaFold was used to develop and manufacture a medication to treat hepatocellular carcinoma, the most prevalent primary liver cancer. DeepMind and the Geneva-based Drugs for Neglected Illness Project, a nonprofit pharmaceutical organization, are using AlphaFold to find treatments for Chagas and Leishmaniasis, two of the deadliest illnesses in impoverished countries.
In October, DeepMind claimed that AlphaFold can predict virtually all molecules in the Protein Data Bank, the world’s biggest open-access biological molecule database. The model can accurately predict the structures of ligands, nucleic acids, and post-translational modifications. Ligands bind to “receptor” proteins and change cell communication.
Isomorphic is using its new AlphaFold model, co-designed with DeepMind, to describe disease-fighting molecular structures in therapeutic drug discovery.
Isomorphics must start making money. In 2021, the firm lost £2.4 million (~$3 million) due to increased recruiting for its second office in Lausanne, Switzerland.