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MARCH 2020 FORBES ASIA“There are very few individuals who understand both sides
of the beast,” says Mani Subramanian, who heads liver dis-
ease clinical research at Gilead. “The biology as well as the
deep learning.”
Future payouts from Gilead hang on whether Insitro can
identify five proteins that could be targets for drugs and then
whether targeting those proteins leads to approved thera-
pies for the liver disease. The contingent payments, which
include revenue sharing from successful drugs, helped In-
sitro earn a spot on Forbes’ inaugural AI 50 list of the most
promising AI companies.
More than 20 other startups are chasing the dream of
faster, cheaper drug discovery through AI including Nota-
ble Labs, with $55 million raised, and Verge Genomics, with
$36 million. Novartis has announced a five-year AI collab-
oration with Microsoft, and Merck and GSK have startup
partnerships as well.
AI isn’t a magic bullet. “I don’t think the platform can
be magic,” Koller says. Before Insitro can reap rewards, a
few hundred thousand lab tests need to happen. Koller
seems undaunted, bouncing around Insitro’s office—she
gave away her desk chair to one of her 53 employees be-
cause she never used it—to show off the latest lab equip-
ment. Big Pharma’s interest appears to make Insitro a like-
ly acquisition target if it hits pay dirt. But Koller says she
doesn’t want Insitro “swallowed into the maw” of a larger
organization, but instead make its own branded drugs. The
ultimate goal, she says, is one day to hear someone say: “Be-
cause of you, I have my life back.”Few scientists get solicited for pho-
to ops, but for Daphne Koller it’s a regular occurrence. “It
happens at pretty much any event that has tech people,”
Koller says. “It’s a little awkward. It’s not like I feel like this
is something I deserve.” Selfie requests are just one sign of
Koller’s stardom, earned from more than 20 years bridging
computer science, biology and education.
She has chalked up a string of accolades: getting a mas-
ter’s degree from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University at 18; be-
coming a Stanford University professor focused on machine
learning at 26; winning, nearly a decade later, a MacArthur
“genius grant” for research that combined artificial intel-
ligence and genomics; cofounding $1 billion (valuation)
Coursera, a platform that offers university classes for free.
The next act for this 51-year-old innovator: Insitro, a San
Francisco firm that aims to find new drugs with data. If In-
sitro succeeds, it will disrupt how drugs get discovered. Sci-
entists typically focus on a few specific proteins as drug tar-
gets—If those fail, they make suggestions for others to try.
Insitro, meanwhile, wants to collect much more data be-
fore the biologists go on a hunt. It will leverage advances in
bioengineering and software that enables computers to see
things that escape humans.
Koller describes her aha moment: “Machine learning is
now doing amazing things if you give it enough data. We
finally have the opportunity to create biological data at
scale.” Insitro’s computer experts and biologists work to-
gether to create lab experiments to produce massive cus-
tom data sets. Machine learning models then find patterns
to suggest new tests and potential therapies. Robotics like
automated pipetting machines reduce human error. With
all this, Insitro can do experiments in a matter of weeks in-
stead of years.
To start Insitro, Koller raised $100 million from ARCH
Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Foresite Capital, Alpha-
bet’s venture fund GV and Third Rock, with Jeff Bezos and
others joining later—all within six months. Last April,
she landed a deal with Gilead Sciences for $15 million
now with $1 billion to follow if Insitro helps find a treat-
ment for a deadly form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.F
A peek inside Insitro's South San Francisco lab.JILLIAN D'ONFRO FOR FORBES
TECHNOLOGY