Cradle: Revolutionizing Protein Engineering with a secure AI platform built on Google Cloud

Cradle, a biotech startup founded in 2021 applying AI to protein engineering, handles highly sensitive R&D data representing years and millions of dollars of customer investment; CEO Stef van Grieken noted "any leak or loss could have severe consequences for our customers' organizations." Cradle built its security architecture on Google Cloud using Google Workspace, Cloud IAM, BeyondCorp zero-trust access, and unphishable hardware-key MFA, following a defense-in-depth, secure-by-design philosophy. The result is a highly secure environment protecting customer IP while reducing R&D spend and shortening timelines; within two years Cradle had signed customers including Johnson & Johnson, Novozymes, and Twist Bioscience.

Google supplies AI to pharma through several distinct lines — Gemini/Vertex AI as an enterprise platform, and AlphaFold-based drug design licensed commercially through Isomorphic Labs.

This sits in the Build stage of the AI use-case lifecycle: Named examples from the foundation-model labs and platforms pharma teams use to actually construct, train and generate the model or application.