Google DeepMind is ready to start human trials of AI-designed drugs; company exec says, ‘We’re getting very close’

Google DeepMind

's

drug discovery

arm, Isomorphic Labs, is “ready" to begin

human trials

of its

AI-designed drugs

. In an interview with Fortune,

Colin Murdoch

, President of

Isomorphic Labs

and Google DeepMind’s Chief Business Officer, said that the company is “getting very close” to starting human trials of these drugs. This development signifies a potential step for Isomorphic Labs after years of work on its AI-assisted drug designing. Isomorphic Labs was established as a separate entity from

DeepMind

in 2021. Its foundation stems from

AlphaFold

, a notable AI system developed by DeepMind, recognised for its ability to predict protein structures with considerable accuracy.

What Google DeepMind exec said about starting human trials for AI-designed drugs

During an interview with Fortune in Paris, Murdoch said: “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.”“The next big milestone is actually going out to clinical trials, starting to put these things into human beings. We’re staffing up now. We’re getting very close,” he added.

Isomorphic Labs, the company that spun out from DeepMind in 2021, originated from AlphaFold, an AI system known for accurately predicting protein structures. Over time, AlphaFold evolved to model interactions between proteins and molecules like DNA and drugs, significantly advancing its utility in drug discovery and accelerating the development of new medicines.Talking about AlphaFold, Murdoch highlighted: “This was the inspiration for Isomorphic Labs. It really demonstrates that we could do something very foundational in AI that could help unlock drug discovery.”In 2024, Isomorphic Labs partnered with

Novartis

and

Eli Lilly

after releasing AlphaFold 3. By April 2025, it had raised $600 million in its first external funding round led by Thrive Capital.These moves support its goal of creating a “world-class drug design engine” that combines AI and pharma expertise to develop medicines more efficiently. Alongside supporting existing drug programs, the company is also developing its candidates in fields like oncology and immunology for future licensing.“We identify an unmet need, and we start our own drug design programs. We develop those, put them into human clinical trials… we haven’t got that yet, but we’re making good progress,”Murdoch explained.Currently, pharma companies invest millions in drug development, often with only a 10% success rate in trials. Murdoch aims to use AlphaFold’s technology to significantly boost these odds, ideally reaching a point where researchers can be fully confident in a drug’s effectiveness before human trials begin.“We’re trying to do all these things: speed them up, reduce the cost, but also really improve the chance that we can be successful. “One day we hope to be able to say — well, here’s a disease, and then click a button and out pops the design for a drug to address that disease. All powered by these amazing AI tools,” Murdoch continued.