Very, very, very far away. This paper is about target selection and hit identification, the very first steps of the pipeline. What follows is Backbone optimizat

Very, very, very far away. This paper is about target selection and hit identification, the very first steps of the pipeline. What follows is Backbone optimization (tweaking the chemistry, and figuring out how to actually produce it), pre-clinical trials (in cells and later in animals), and should those prove successful (fairly unlikely in general), then we'll have clinical phases 1-3. Each of those will take several years. Most candidate drugs that even manage to come to clinical trials will fail there (i forgot the exact numbers, but far over 95%). In general: this research is at the stage of someone coming to a software engineer with the words "I have an idea about an app". The actual work hasn't really started yet, and most likely this won't work at all. Should this molecule be successful (Wich is highly unlikely, as most hit targets aren't) it will probably take an decade until this becomes an experimental treatment, and likely two or more until it becomes a standard treatment. All in all, this isn't really big news at all, this is a very unexciting thing, and only gets views because it has AlphaFold in the title (Caveat: it's been a few years since I worked in a remotely related area)