Google pushes boundaries in biotech as Isomorphic Labs prepares for human drug trials

Colin Murdoch, President of Isomorphic Labs and CBO at Google DeepMind, said the company is nearing human trials, with teams in London actively designing AI-driven treatments for diseases like cancer as the next milestone

Isomorphic Labs, a drug discovery venture born out of Google DeepMind, is gearing up to enter a critical new phase—human clinical trials of its AI-designed medicines. The company aims to transform traditional pharmaceutical development by using artificial intelligence to design drugs faster, more affordably, and with greater precision.

Colin Murdoch, President of Isomorphic Labs and Chief Business Officer at Google DeepMind, confirmed that the company is “getting very close” to launching trials. “We have teams in our London office working with AI to design treatments for diseases like cancer. The next big milestone is to begin putting those into human beings,” he told Fortune.

Isomorphic Labs was established in 2021 following the success of DeepMind’s AlphaFold system, which can accurately predict 3D protein structures. The AI breakthrough was so impactful that AlphaFold’s creators—Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and collaborator David Baker—were jointly awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The innovation laid the groundwork for applying AI at the molecular level in drug design.

Pharma partnerships fuel AI innovation

The startup has since formed collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis and Eli Lilly. It also raised $600 million in April 2025 to accelerate its internal drug discovery efforts, focusing on therapeutic areas like oncology and immunology.

Murdoch explained that Isomorphic Labs doesn’t just assist partners but is also initiating its own in-house drug development programs. “We look for unmet clinical needs, design candidate drugs with AI, and aim to take them into clinical trials. We’re not there yet, but we’re making strong progress,” he said.

Drug development is notoriously costly and time-consuming, with most experimental drugs failing in human trials. Isomorphic Labs hopes AI will not only cut costs and timelines but significantly improve success rates. Murdoch envisions a future where AI can quickly generate potential treatments: “One day, we hope it’s as simple as identifying a disease and letting AI design a drug with the click of a button.”

As AI reshapes industries, Isomorphic Labs’ entry into clinical trials could mark a turning point for how the world approaches medicine creation—blending biology with machine intelligence.