The Center for Data Innovation spoke with Bill Shipman, co-founder and chief technology officer of Polaris Quantum Biotech, a North Carolina-based company that uses quantum computing to help discover and design new drugs. Shipman discussed how Polaris’ platform accelerates drug discovery, what advantages quantum offers for this field, and how future advances in scaling the computational power of quantum hardware will impact the company.
Martin Makaryan: What does Polaris offer?
Bill Shipman: Polaris offers a platform called QuADD—short for quantum-aided drug design—that leverages currently available quantum computing capabilities to accelerate the drug discovery and design process. This is the first drug discovery platform built on a quantum computer. QuADD allows our clients to significantly reduce the time to identify potential drug candidates compared to traditional methods by singling out lead molecules for new drugs. We examine large chemical databases, which involve billions of molecules, to find candidates with favorable properties. We create a set of optimal solutions like solubility and molecular fit—that is, the geometric 3 dimensional fit of a molecule attaching to a protein. This approach allows us to filter massive datasets to identify promising compounds for further study and testing.
Makaryan: What advantage does quantum computing offer for drug discovery?
Shipman: Traditional drug discovery and design requires identifying novel molecules that can effectively bind to disease-related proteins, potentially altering the disease’s progression. Current computer-aided drug design systems allow researchers to explore only a fraction of what is possible. For example, traditional methods allow developers to search and explore 250k-1 million molecules, while our quantum-aided platform enables searching chemical spaces over twenty orders of magnitude larger. The computational power of a quantum system helps significantly improve the probability of finding the optimal molecule and finding effective molecules much faster. With quantum computing, researchers can discover hard-to-find molecules and accelerate drug design by optimizing targeted chemical space. This optimization eliminates costly and time-consuming iterations that can take months or even years.
Makaryan: What are the limitations of quantum technology for drug discovery?
Shipman: Today’s quantum systems can only model very simple systems, such as water molecules. Modeling complex molecules requires hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of qubits. We’re not there yet, so we focus on using today’s quantum capabilities to solve optimization challenges, using the computational power of quantum to process more data and identify the most optimal molecules. Most of the current hype about quantum revolves around quantum supremacy or the ability to break encryption, which, while significant, doesn’t impact most industries yet. What is more relevant is “quantum utility”—using today’s quantum systems to provide higher quality answers than classical solutions. This focus helps us deliver value now, even if quantum is a nascent field and has not yet revolutionized industries.
Makaryan: What challenges have you faced as an innovator in the quantum field?
Shipman: One major challenge is the limited talent pool in quantum computing. The field requires a unique combination of skills: deep knowledge of quantum mechanics, problem abstraction, and practical implementation. Many developers come from physics backgrounds, focusing on the hardware, but translating complex problems into quantum-compatible solutions is also a rare and yet important skill. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, navigating a nascent field like quantum computing requires resilience. The technology is advancing, but it’s not a quick path to commercial success. Sustained investment and patience are crucial.
Makaryan: Looking ahead, what quantum advances could have the most impact on Polaris?
Shipman: Innovation in quantum or any frontier technology is a long game. It’s about balancing bold ideas with practical, incremental progress. Focus on solving meaningful problems with the tools available today and staying open to new possibilities as the technology evolves. The progress in different modalities that could help us produce powerful quantum computers and overcome the hardware challenges—trapped ions, neutral atoms, superconducting qubits—is exciting. Each modality offers unique advantages, and this diversity improves fault tolerance. As we scale from thousands to potentially millions of qubits, it will enable breakthroughs in modeling more complex molecules. I think these advances will have an impact on Polaris, enabling us to upgrade our platform to help our clients accelerate their drug discovery and design process further.
