Spiked Demand for Drug Data — Michael Liu
In the next 50 years, we will see unbounded advancements in medicine, allowing humanity to cure most diseases and extend human lifespan. In the next 100, we’ll see ‘N of 1’ drugs—drugs that are designed for and consumed by one person. The first unlock will be a step improvement in drug discovery. Today, drug discovery is a highly ineffective process, costing an average of $150 million to identify a single successful candidate. Most drugs come from copying existing molecules or from brute-force screening: testing a million compounds and keeping the few that stick. Scientists may sift through thousands of random TCRs from arbitrary human samples just to find one that binds to a specific cancer antigen. That stochasticity encourages the term "drug discovery". Pharmaceuticals are hungry for a change. AI Labs like Chai Discovery, Isomorphic Labs, and Absci are betting that medicines tomorrow will be designed rather than discovered. They’re seeing results. The FDA cleared Isomorphic Labs’ fi