Brandon Richard

Demis Hassabis explains Isomorphic Labs' 10x drug discovery engine, and why solving disease could also create a multi-hundred-billion-dollar business "If you ask me, the number one thing AI can do for humanity, it would be to solve hundreds of terrible diseases. I can't imagine a better use case for AI." "If you could revolutionize the drug discovery process, make it 10x faster and more efficient, and more likely to pass through the clinical trials because you can predict the properties better, that has to also be of enormous commercial value too." "I hope to do both with Isomorphic." "Build a multi-hundred-billion-dollar business. I think it has that potential, as well as being incredibly beneficial for society and humanity." The real health AI prize is not another chatbot. It is compressing the path from a predicted drug property to a clinical trial, then turning that speed into treatments for hundreds of diseases. Demis is making a rare dual bet: the most valuable AI company in biology may also deliver AI's most valuable public benefit. - Demis Hassabis (@demishassabis), CEO of Google DeepMind and founder of Isomorphic Labs, on @BloombergTV

@capnpope Agreed, potential impacts of the biosecurity act and genesis mission aren't fully priced in imo

@BreakoutBiotech people are not pricing in biosecurity aspect of $TWST

$TWST Twist projects that roughly 75% of all new incremental revenue will drop directly to the gross margin line by heavily utilizing existing capacity. They are currently using less than 50% of their existing, highly automated manufacturing capacity. Because the physical factories and massive silicon printing presses are already built, Twist can effectively double its physical production volume without needing to double its fixed facility, depreciation, or equipment costs. Management has noted that the company has maintained relatively flat fixed costs while growing revenue at a 22% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the prior three years.

@B__Digs Nice, good stuff 👍

$CMPS with more headlines cambridge.org/core/journals/…

$CMPS Pilot study of Psilocybin therapy for adult females with Anorexia Nervosa: "This study further provides preliminary support for the feasibility, safety and potential efficacy of this intervention to treat adult females with anorexia nervosa, and warrants further investigation in larger and more rigorously designed studies." "This single-blind, within-individual pilot study recruited 21 females with anorexia nervosa, who underwent three dosing sessions with oral psilocybin (COMP360) over 6 weeks in a fixed order (1 mg, 25 mg, 25 mg), alongside talk therapy and adjunctive to treatment as usual." Source: cambridge.org/core/journals/…

@Dansfera @dr_anjo_phd And their NGS and data businesses should help with the lumpiness. Plus the data business in particular is growing fast.

@BreakoutBiotech @dr_anjo_phd synthesis itself is a commodity race. the flywheel is the moat, owning sequence to library to screening turns TWST into a discovery engine not a parts supplier. that value only shows up as lumpy partnership upfronts, which is why it stays discounted

$TWST Part of Twist's competitive moat is the "only US-based one-stop-shop for gene synthesis" capable of delivering both extreme sequence complexity and high-throughput scale simultaneously. This unique infrastructure upgrade is a direct bet on the AI drug discovery market. Historically, sequences containing extreme guanine-cytosine (GC) content, homopolymers, or complex repeats were notoriously difficult to manufacture, resulting in high costs, unpredictable timelines that could stretch for months, and frequent synthesis failures. Twist’s upgraded platform resolves this bottleneck by accepting 99.5% of all requested sequences and reliably delivering them within a standard 15-business-day turnaround time, regardless of complexity. Pharmaceutical companies previously had to choose between vendors that specialized in either bulk standard synthesis or bespoke complex synthesis. Twist has bridged this gap, allowing researchers to order highly complex genetic code in any customized format they need, ranging from multiplexed gene fragments to fully assembled IgG proteins. This is key in the age of AI. Generative AI models are incredibly powerful at designing novel, hyper-effective proteins, but AI algorithms do not naturally account for the physical limitations of legacy DNA manufacturing. As a result, AI frequently "hallucinates" highly complex sequences that traditional labs simply cannot build. Twist's ability to print 99.5% of these complex sequences exactly as the AI designed them (without forcing researchers to waste time altering the digital code to make it "manufacturable") cements Twist as the necessary physical backend for the booming AI therapeutics industry.

And not U.S. based, and the Biosecurity Act and Genesis Mission are pushing the U.S. and allies toward domestic DNA synthesis. And from what I understand they mainly compete on the DNA synthesis part of the business and Twist's chips are still more scalable. And Twist has other revenue streams as well, I Iike their vertically integrated ability to write millions of sequences at scale, bundle them into proprietary library kits, and use that data flywheel to drive AI-powered drug discovery pipelines under one roof.

@BreakoutBiotech GenScript pretty good too, just not publicly traded.

@Dansfera Imo the "picks and shovels" narrative has shifted some since they're focusing more on their internal pipeline, but the idea is that the engine works, regardless of who's using it. The combo of partnerships progressing and their expanding internal pipeline could be a big de-risk.

@BreakoutBiotech the abcellera model is the picks and shovels version of biotech. you're not betting on one asset, you're betting on a discovery engine that gets paid upfront to take shots on goal it doesn't have to fund. combining GPCR and TCE just widens the funnel

$ABCL While AbCellera's GPCR and multi-specific/TCE platforms are exciting on their own, I'm even more excited about the asymmetric value they can create by combining them. Some of the hardest (and most lucrative) GPCR targets fall into categories where multi-specific modalities (like T-cell Engagers or ADCs) are required, for example: • GPRC5D (G-protein coupled receptor class C group 5 member D) - Massively overexpressed in Multiple Myeloma. It’s the target behind J&J’s Talquetamab. Unlocking it opens the floodgates for high-value T-cell engagers (GPRC5D x CD3). • LGR5 (Leucine-Rich Repeat Containing G Protein-Coupled Receptor 5) - The definitive marker for colorectal cancer stem cells. Hitting this with a selective ADC or bispecific (LGR5 x EGFR) would not only shrink tumors, but also eliminate the self-renewing engine of chemoresistance. • SSTR2 (Somatostatin Receptor 2) - Heavily overexpressed in neuroendocrine tumors and small cell lung cancer. By transitioning this target from traditional radiopharmaceuticals to a bispecific T-cell engager (SSTR2 x CD3), platforms can unlock a massive, highly selective solid tumor market with superior drug-like half-lives. AbCellera isn't just building one platform in a notoriously difficult space, they're tackling multiple bottlenecks at once and compounding them to create one of the deepest, most vertically integrated moats in biotech.

$TWST This study explores "clonal entrapment" which explains a major paradox in oncology: why certain patients with inflamed "hot" tumors still don't respond to immunotherapy. Researchers used Twist's "Human Exome 2.0 Plus" panel to isolate and capture specific genetic regions. Twist's silicon-based DNA synthesis platform allows for the creation of highly uniform, precise capture probes. By using this Twist infrastructure, the researchers were able to accurately track the chromosomal instability (CIN) of the tumors, measure the copy number variations (CNVs) cell-by-cell, and definitively map how the tumor's genetic landscape evolved to deploy its GDF15 defense mechanism.

@tyler_bosserman Yep, and once their drugs start hitting the market and partnership revenue starts coming in they'll have steady, non-dilutive capital to continue building out the pipeline, so.much potential.

@BreakoutBiotech Same. I could envision many molecules in the clinic in various stages. 2030 gonna be lit

@tyler_bosserman Agreed, current pipeline feels like the tip of the iceberg if trials go well, so many possible targets. They didn't start working on this stuff yesterday, years of planning and foresight went into building these platforms, will be fun to see it all come together in coming years.

@BreakoutBiotech Wonderful stuff. It goes to show that there are many targets out there with high unmet need that could use great antibodies to unlock thier full therapeutic value. I firmly believe that ABCL will play a meaningful role in that future.

@Dansfera It's a hard company to understand and an even harder one to price. Most of the market doesn't fully understand the platform, it just wants to see the results. If we start seeing the golden eggs, I think the market will start caring about the platform and aggressively re-rate.

@BreakoutBiotech the vertically integrated moat is the part the market can't model so it just doesn't. platform value shows up as one-time partnership upfronts, not a clean revenue line. same reason discovery engines trade cheap until a big pharma deal reprices them overnight

@ccbtrjnts No problem, glad it's helpful! I enjoy researching and sharing what I find about this company 🙂

@BreakoutBiotech Thank you for the constant writing on ABCL. Absolutely love these.

@tyler_bosserman 💯

@BreakoutBiotech Yeah, we are definitely right in the thick of it all. Out full tech stack is unparalleled in the industry. We have the talent. We have the capital. We have the intention. All the ingredients necessary to create a bit of magic. Exciting times ahead.

$ABCL An old article from 2023. Very short but I like how Carl Hansen put it... “If you made the analogy to the semiconductor industry, this would be like the 1950s,” he says. “No one is yet understanding that we’re going to have supercomputers in our pockets. Biotechnology is on that trajectory.” My takeaway: we are on the cusp of something very special and generational. #utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">goldbeck.com/blog/biotech-b…

@GpeterTrades @tyler_bosserman Lol with the potential this company has, I'd say we're all early to the party 😎

@BreakoutBiotech @tyler_bosserman seems like you guys already covered it I am late to the party 🤣

Just realized Baker Bros. Advisors holds around 10.8% of $ABCL. That’s not a small position. This size shows conviction. Baker Bros. is one of the better-known specialist biotech investors, so seeing them own a meaningful stake in AbCellera makes the story even more interesting to me. With ABCL635 becoming a key catalyst, partnerships coming in, and the platform story starting to wake up again, I think this is worth paying attention to.

@SebastianE18938 @Caleb_Crann I could see them strongly preferring the partner it, but I think the indication is compelling enough for them to want to pursue either way. Latest announcement for VLS confirms they're aiming for a sweep on indications so I think they'll want to keep SAD in the pipeline.

@Caleb_Crann @BreakoutBiotech Part of it has to do with cost of treatment. Absent a partnership I don't see atai pursuing EMP. I think they are all in on DMT at this point (VLS and BPL).

$ATAI Most of the attention has been on BPL-003 and more recently VLS-01, but I'm curious if they'll partner for EMP-01. They've yet to disclose next steps for it since announcing phase 2a topline. Non-hallucinogenics in dev could eventually be interesting candidates as well.