AI Meets Biotech: The Future Of Protein Therapeutics With Mike Nally And Jason Silvers

May 29, 2025

Guest

Jason Silvers

Guest

Mike Nally

Mike Nally, CEO of Generate Biomedicines, and Jason Silvers, its CFO, discuss the revolutionary impact of AI on protein therapeutics. They delve into how their 'self-driving lab' utilizes machine learning and cryo-electron microscopy to expedite drug discovery, potentially reducing development time and costs significantly. The conversation highlights their data-first approach to overcoming traditional trial-and-error in drug development, unlocking treatments for previously undruggable diseases, and transforming the economics of biotech.

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INSIGHT

Efficiency Over Hardware Expansion

Generate focuses on automating and improving productivity in existing cryo-EM hardware rather than just expanding capacity.
Innovations like cell-free protein synthesis drastically reduce protein growth time, accelerating experimental cycles.

INSIGHT

Partnerships Fuel Platform Capital

Generate mitigates clinical and manufacturing capital intensity through partnerships and licensing lead assets.
They focus on monetizing preclinical proof-of-concept to sustain platform development and pursue diverse therapeutic areas.

INSIGHT

Scaling Discovery Beyond Genius

Digital, computational approaches enable scale in drug discovery, historically limited by reliance on individual genius.
Generate's platform tackles many programs simultaneously, leveraging partnerships for therapeutic area expertise.

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In this episode of FYI – For Your Innovation, Brett Winton and ARK analyst Nemo Despot sit down with Generate Biomedicines CEO Mike Nally and CFO Jason Silvers to explore how generative AI is transforming the discovery and development of protein-based therapeutics. Founded in 2018 by Flagship Pioneering, Generate Biomedicines is building a “self-driving lab” that combines machine learning, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), and high-throughput wet lab automation to dramatically accelerate drug development. The conversation dives into how Generate is reimagining protein therapeutics — going beyond trial-and-error methods to a data-first, design-driven model for creating novel medicines. The team discusses the company’s proprietary approach to integrating structural biology with functional data, the economic implications of reducing time-to-market from 13 years to under 9, and how their platform could unlock treatments for diseases that have been historically undruggable. They also touch on strategic partnerships, scalability, and how AI is shifting the biotech business model from artisanal science to an industrialized, data-driven enterprise.

Key Points From This Episode:

00:01:30 Why Generate Biomedicines is rethinking protein drug discovery from first principles
00:04:40 How their structure-first approach differs from peers like AbSci and Recursion
00:07:04 Using cryo-EM to build proprietary protein interaction datasets
00:10:57 Traditional drug discovery is random, expensive, and inefficient — here’s how Generate is changing that
00:16:58 From concept to clinic in 18–24 months: Accelerating timelines through AI
00:20:47 Going beyond efficiency: Unlocking access to undruggable biology
00:24:48 Turning cryo-EM into a high-throughput data engine for model training
00:31:20 The long-term vision: Patient-specific protein therapeutics
00:40:00 Why scalability gives Generate an edge over traditional biotech
00:47:52 The future of biotech as a research & development (R&D) sharing economy
00:54:19 Adapting fast: Keeping pace with generative AI advances across the stack
01:00:16 The KPI (key performance indicator) for platform success: Rate of improvement