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