Alphabet's AI Drug Discovery Startup Isomorphic Labs Secures $600M in Landmark Funding Round

Alphabet's AI drug discovery platform Isomorphic Labs raises $600M from Thrive | TechCrunch

Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug discovery platform that was spun out of Google's DeepMind in 2021, has raised external capital for the first time. The $600 million round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from GV, and existing investor Google's parent Alphabet, it said. The funding will accelerate further development of Isomorphic's AI drug design engine and support the company's goal of bringing its discovered drugs to clinical trials. Isomorphic Labs was founded by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis by leveraging DeepMind's software for AI drug discovery, including AlphaFold, an AI model that predicts the three-dimensional structures of proteins. Last year, Isomorphic Labs secured strategic partnerships with Eli Lilly and Novartis, potentially generating up to $3 billion in milestone payments for access to its AI model. Hassabis told the New York Times that while Isomorphic Labs didn't need the capital, the extra funding will help the division hire top research scientists. For their work on AlphaFold, Hassabis and DeepMind researcher John Jumper were among the three scientists who received a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024.

Alphabet's AI Drug Unit Raises $600 Million From OpenAI Backer

Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet Inc.-owned company that uses artificial intelligence to discover drugs, has raised $600 million, the first time it's taken in external funding. The round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Alphabet and its venture arm, GV, Isomorphic Labs said in a statement Monday. The company's valuation was not disclosed. Thrive has also invested in OpenAI, a rival to Alphabet's Google in researching artificial intelligence and bringing to market user-facing products such as chatbots.

Google DeepMind's drug discovery spin-off Isomorphic Labs raises $600mn

Isomorphic Labs, the drug discovery start-up spun out of Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence unit, has raised $600mn in its first external funding round, as investors bet on the potential for AI to "solve disease". The fundraising for the London-based group, whose chief executive is Nobel Prize winner Sir Demis Hassabis, was led by Thrive Capital, the New York-based investor that is also among the biggest backers of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The round, announced on Monday, was also joined by GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet, Google's parent company. It also included further investment from Alphabet. Further financial details, such as Isomorphic Labs' valuation and its new ownership structure, were not revealed. However, Alphabet remains the majority shareholder. The fundraising is among the biggest yet for a UK AI company, providing a financial boost as Hassabis pushes to have drugs designed by AI in clinical trials by the end of the year. "This funding will further turbocharge the development of our next-generation AI drug design engine, help us advance our own programmes into clinical development and is a significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI," he said. The company said the investment would help accelerate AI research and development in drug design and would allow the company to expand its team. "We believe Isomorphic has earned a rare position to define a new age of drug discovery and design, and we are deeply inspired by their mission and the extraordinary progress they have made to date," said Josh Kushner, founder and chief executive of Thrive Capital. Isomorphic Labs was spun out from DeepMind in 2021 and has since partnered with large pharmaceutical companies, such as Novartis and Eli Lilly, which are keen to cut costs and develop drugs faster. In May last year, DeepMind unveiled AlphaFold 3, an AI model that can predict the structures of genetic code DNA and RNA, as well as ligands, which are molecules that bind to others and that can be important markers of disease. Isomorphic Labs' researchers use the tool as well as proprietary AI models to run predictions and simulate drug development. In the company's first year of full operations in 2023, it reported losses of £60mn, up from £17mn a year earlier, according to its latest accounts filed at Companies House. Isomorphic Labs also reported that it had grown its R&D costs to £49mn from £12mn, and tripled its staff costs to £20mn with a headcount of 71. Hassabis, who jointly received the Nobel Prize for chemistry last October for developing AlphaFold, an AI tool that can predict the structure of proteins, said on LinkedIn: "I've long felt that improving human health is the most important thing we can do with AI and today marks a big step towards a new era of drug discovery."

Google-backed AI drug discovery startup raises $600 million

March 31 (Reuters) - Isomorphic Labs, which uses artificial intelligence technologies for drug discovery, has raised $600 million in its first ever external funding round led by Thrive Capital, the startup said on Monday. Google Ventures and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, an existing investor, also participated in the round. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Top tech companies are racing to position AI-powered offerings as central to their products and services. Startups catering to the surge in demand for generative AI and machine learning have been a bright spot in the private funding market. CONTEXT Isomorphic was founded in 2021 as a spin-off from Alphabet's AI research subsidiary Google Deepmind, which it acquired in 2014. Last May, the company unveiled the third major version of its Nobel-winning "AlphaFold" artificial intelligence model, which is able to predict almost all known proteins structures. WHAT'S NEXT The London-based company said funds raised will be used to accelerate research and development as well as talent acquisition. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis, who also leads Deepmind, suggested in January that Isomorphic Labs will have AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of 2025. Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

Alphabet-Backed Isomorphic Labs Raises $600M For AI Drug Development

Google spinoff Isomorphic Labs raised $600 million in its first external funding round as the company looks to apply artificial intelligence to the drug development process. "This funding will further turbocharge the development of our next-generation AI drug design engine, help us advance our own programs into clinical development, and is a significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI," founder and CEO Sir Demis Hassabis said in a statement. The round is just the latest big raise by a startup using AI in the pursuit of drug development. Some notable raises in the past year-plus include San Francisco-based Xaira Therapeutics securing a $1 billion Series A last spring led by Arch Venture Partners and Foresite Capital, and New York-based Formation Bio locking up $372 million in a Series D last summer led by Andreessen Horowitz. The deal is also another big investment for Thrive, the New York-based investment firm co-founded by Joshua Kushner. The firm led Databricks' massive $10 billion raise at a $62 billion valuation last December. The deal was the largest venture capital raise of 2024 and one of the largest on record.

Alphabet spinout Isomorphic Labs raises $600M for its AI drug design engine - SiliconANGLE

Alphabet spinout Isomorphic Labs raises $600M for its AI drug design engine Isomorphic Labs Inc., a healthcare startup that spun out of Alphabet Inc. in 2021, today announced that it has closed a $600 million funding round. OpenAI backer Thrive Capital led the investment. It was joined by Alphabet and GV, the search giant's startup investment arm. Isomorphic Labs is led by Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis, who previously led Google LLC's DeepMind artificial intelligence lab. The company is building what it describes as an AI drug design engine. The software reduces the amount of manual work involved in developing new medicines and thereby speeds up the process. Most drugs are based on so-called small molecules. Those are lightweight organic molecules that can disrupt a biological process associated with a disease. According to Isomorphic Labs, its AI streamlines the task of designing new small molecules with therapeutic applications. The company's software can also ease several other aspects of the drug development workflow. In addition to having therapeutic potential, a small molecule must meet many other criteria to effectively treat disease. One of those requirements is the ability to effectively attach to a disease-causing protein. In a blog post published last July, Isomorphic Labs executive Pascal Savy detailed that the company's drug design engine can predict the effectiveness with which a small molecule attaches to a protein. It also maps out other properties such as a small molecule's solubility. Under the hood, the drug design engine is powered by several different AI models. One of them is Google LLC's AlphaFold 3 model. It's an improved version of AlphaFold 2, the AI system for which Isomorphic Labs CEO Demis Hassabis won half of last year's Nobel Prize in chemistry with former DeepMind colleague John Jumper. The behavior of proteins, the basic building blocks of life, is heavily influenced by their shape. Mapping out a single protein's shape historically took several years. AlphaFold 2 reduced that process to a few minutes. AlphaFold 3, the improved version of the model used by Isomorphic Labs' drug design engine, debuted last May. It can predict the shape of not only proteins but also DNA, RNA and other biological building blocks. Moreover, the algorithm does so more reliably than earlier models. AlphaFold 3 is powered by a diffusion network, a type of neural network commonly used for image generation tasks. To predict the shape of a biomolecule, the model generates a digital object that represents a cloud of atoms. AlphaFold 3 then refines this atom cloud in multiple steps until it turns into a visualization of the molecule's shape. The AI system also incorporates an attention mechanism. This is a software module that large language models use to identify the most important items in a collection of data points. According to Google, the attention mechanism enables AlphaFold 3 to generate more accurate predictions about the shape of biomolecules than earlier technologies. Isomorphic Labs is using its software to power several in-house drug development programs. In addition, the company has partnered with Eli Lilly an Co. and Novartis AG to support their research efforts. Last month, Isomorphic Labs announced plans to expand the collaboration with Novartis by adding up to three more joint research programs. The Alphabet spinout will use the $600 million round announced today to enhance its software and finance drug development programs. Isomorphic Labs will hire more employees to support the effort.

Google-Backed AI Drug Discovery Startup Raises $600 Million

(Reuters) - Isomorphic Labs, which uses artificial intelligence technologies for drug discovery, has raised $600 million in its first ever external funding round led by Thrive Capital, the startup said on Monday. Google Ventures and Alphabet, an existing investor, also participated in the round. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Top tech companies are racing to position AI-powered offerings as central to their products and services. Startups catering to the surge in demand for generative AI and machine learning have been a bright spot in the private funding market. CONTEXT Isomorphic was founded in 2021 as a spin-off from Alphabet's AI research subsidiary Google Deepmind, which it acquired in 2014. Last May, the company unveiled the third major version of its Nobel-winning "AlphaFold" artificial intelligence model, which is able to predict almost all known proteins structures. WHAT'S NEXT The London-based company said funds raised will be used to accelerate research and development as well as talent acquisition. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis, who also leads Deepmind, suggested in January that Isomorphic Labs will have AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of 2025. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)

Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs raises $600M in first funding round for AI...

Isomorphic Labs, Google's artificial intelligence drug business, raised $600 million in its first external funding round, the company said on Monday. Thrive Capital, a venture capital firm, led the funding round with participation from Google Ventures, the company said in a press release. It will receive follow-on capital from existing backer Alphabet. The London-based company's goal is an ambitious one - to "solve all disease," according to the Isomorphic Labs site. The AI research lab, which launched in 2021, aims to transform the drug discovery and design process by using artificial intelligence, a method that could drastically speed up breakthroughs. The Alphabet subsidiary already has a Nobel Prize under its belt for the development of AlphaFold, an AI platform that can predict protein structures in minutes. AlphaFold has "already potentially saved millions of dollars and hundreds of millions of years in research time," Google boasted on the DeepMind website. Isomorphic Labs said it will use the new funding to further its research and expand its team. "This funding will further turbocharge the development of our next-generation AI drug design engine, help us advance our own programs into clinical development, and is a significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI," Demis Hassabis, Isomorphic Labs founder and chief executive, said in a statement. Hassabis is also the chief executive of DeepMind Technologies, Alphabet's artificial intelligence research group. Isomorphic Labs has partnered with major pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Novartis. Alphabet has several other health-related subsidiaries, including Verily, a healthcare software firm, and Calico, which studies ways to expand lifespans.

Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs secures $600 million in funding By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Isomorphic Labs, a company owned by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc. that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to discover drugs, has secured $600 million in a funding round. This marks the first time the company has received external funding. Thrive Capital led the funding round, with Alphabet and its venture arm, GV, also participating. The details of the company's valuation were not disclosed in the announcement made by Isomorphic Labs on Monday. Thrive Capital has previously invested in OpenAI, a company that competes with Alphabet's Google in researching AI and marketing user-facing products such as chatbots. Isomorphic Labs was established by Alphabet in 2021, as a spin-off from DeepMind, an AI startup that Alphabet acquired in 2014. Demis Hassabis, the leader of DeepMind and the individual in charge of Google's AI efforts, also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Isomorphic Labs. In the previous year, Isomorphic Labs announced partnerships with pharmaceutical companies Novartis (LON:0QLR) AG (SIX:NOVN) and Eli Lilly & Co (NYSE:LLY).

Alphabet-Backed Isomorphic Labs Raises $600 Million for AI Drug Development

Isomorphic Labs raised $600 million in its first external funding round to boost its artificial-intelligence drug design pipeline across multiple therapeutic areas. The 4-year-old subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet said Monday that U.S. capital venture firm Thrive Capital led the funding round with participation from Google Ventures. The London-based AI company will receive follow-on capital from existing investor Alphabet. The company will use the investment to advance its AI research and development and expand its team. "This funding will further turbocharge the development of our next-generation AI drug design engine, help us advance our own programs into clinical development, and is a significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI," Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis, who is also the head of Google's AI division DeepMind, said. Isomorphic Labs developed the AI platform AlphaFold, which can accurately predict a protein's structure in minutes--an important component of drug discovery. It partners with U.S. pharma giant Eli Lilly and Swiss drugmaker Novartis for drug design and development through AI.