Vital Signs with Jacob Effron and Nikhil Krishnan Ep 53: Cradle CEO Stef van Grieken on the State of AI x Bio and Selling SaaS to Pharma
Dec 3, 2024
Stef van Grieken, Co-founder and CEO of Cradle, spearheads AI innovations in protein engineering for drug development. They delve into the rapid growth of Cradle, fueled by a $100M funding round, and discuss the complexities of AI's integration into drug discovery. Stef highlights the challenges of selling SaaS to pharma and the critical need for effective lab automation. With insights into future trends, he explores what the next 25 years hold for biotechnology and the evolving landscape of AI-driven drug development.
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Early Stage of AI in Drug Development
- AI in drug development is still in the early stages, roughly like GPT 0.2 in language models.
- Key areas with progress include hit identification, lead optimization, and de-risking experimental cycles.
Cradle's AI Architecture Explained
- Cradle's AI platform combines transformer and sequence diffusion models with predictors and generators.
- The system actively explores sequence space and assesses confidence to avoid out-of-domain risks.
Invest in In-House Labs Early
- Invest early in in-house labs for rapid, high-quality experimental data.
- Run experiments not just for assets but also to improve model training across projects.