- Isomorphic Labs partnered with Eli Lilly and Novartis, potentially earning up to $3 billion in milestone payments.
- Demis Hassabis and John Jumper received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on AlphaFold.
Isomorphic Labs, the AI-driven drug discovery platform spun out of Google’s DeepMind in 2021, has secured $600 million in its first external funding round.
Thrive Capital led the investment, with participation from GV and Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
The funding will accelerate the development of Isomorphic’s AI-powered drug design platform and support its goal of advancing discovered drugs to clinical trials.
The company, founded by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, leverages DeepMind’s AI models, including AlphaFold, to predict protein structures critical for drug discovery.
In 2023, Isomorphic Labs entered strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novartis. These collaborations could generate up to $3 billion in milestone payments, granting access to its AI-driven drug discovery technology.
Hassabis told the New York Times that the company did not require the additional capital but sees the funding as an opportunity to expand its team by hiring top research scientists.
The significance of AlphaFold’s impact on AI-driven scientific advancements was recognized globally when Hassabis and DeepMind researcher John Jumper were among the three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.
With this latest investment, Isomorphic Labs is poised to push the boundaries of AI in drug discovery, further solidifying its position at the forefront of pharmaceutical innovation.
Edited by Annette George
