Talking to the Financial Times, Demis Hassabis, who co-founded Google's AI unit and led the drugs offshoot Isomorphic Labs, said the aim was to cut the discovery stage -- when potential drugs are spotted before clinical trials -- from the average of five years to two.

"I think that would be a success for us and be very important," he said.

Hassabis said the aim days after announcing Isomorphic Lab's first two pharmaceutical deals with Eli Lilly and Novartis, which came to a total value of up to $3 billion, in deals set to change the finances of the loss-making group.

Isomorphic Labs uses an AI platform to guess biochemical structures, which helps the making of new drugs by suggesting which possible compounds will have the desired effect in the body. Including clinical trials, it often takes up to a decade to find and make a new drug, costing on average about $2.7 billion, according to research by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

Big Pharm is under pressure to fill their pipelines with new possible medicines to make as much cash before their patents run out, and they end up in the paws of cheaper generic rivals.

As healthcare systems around the world put pressure on drug prices, pharma companies are also looking for ways to cut costs in research and development. Hassabis said that many drugmakers had been keen to team up with Isomorphic, but the company wanted to focus on collaborations that could boost its technology.