Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs secures $2B+ funding to accelerate AI drug discovery globally

Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs reportedly raising $2B+ for its medical research AI - SiliconANGLE

Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs reportedly raising $2B+ for its medical research AI Isomorphic Labs Inc., an Alphabet Inc. unit using artificial intelligence to speed up drug development, is reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round. Sources told Bloomberg today that the investment could be worth more than $2 billion. OpenAI Group PBC backer Thrive Capital, an existing Isomorphic Labs investor, is expected to lead the round. Alphabet will reportedly chip in as well. Isomorphic Labs spun off from the search giant's Google DeepMind machine learning research lab in 2021. It's led by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis. The executive and another DeepMind staffer jointly won half the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on an AI model called AlphaFold 2. The algorithm can automatically predict the structure of proteins, a task that historically required years of manual work. In 2024, DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs released a significantly improved successor to the model. AlphaFold 3 delivers a more than 50% accuracy increase across certain research tasks. It's particularly adept at analyzing small molecules, biological building blocks that form the basis of many drugs. Isomorphic Labs' flagship product is an AI system called the Isomorphic Labs Drug Design Engine, or IsoDDE. It's designed to speed up drug development projects by automating manual research workflows. The Alphabet unit says that IsoDDE can perform some tasks significantly better than Alpha Fold 3. Researchers often start a drug development project by studying the proteins that make up a disease-causing cell. In particular, they search for proteins with so-called binding pockets. Those are entry points through which drugs can be delivered into the disease-causing cell to neutralize it. Isomorphic Labs evaluated IsoDDE's ability to find binding pockets and perform related tasks using a benchmark called Runs N' Poses. According to the company, the model more than doubled the score of AlphaFold 3 across the most difficult tasks. Another selling point of IsoDDE is that it requires a relatively limited amount of data about a protein to search for binding pockets. That reduces the amount of preparatory work involved in pharmaceutical projects. After researchers identify a suitable binding pocket in a protein, they have to find a therapeutic compound that can attach to it. IsoDDE speeds up that task as well. It can predict a compound's binding affinity, or its ability to attach to a protein in a disease-causing cell, with significantly higher accuracy than earlier methods.

Google's Isomorphic Labs to raise over $2 billion in new funding - The Economic Times

Alphabet's AI drug discovery firm, Isomorphic Labs, is reportedly close to securing over $2 billion in new funding, led by Thrive Capital. This significant investment aims to bolster its drug design engine and fuel global expansion, underscoring Alphabet's strategy of commercializing its advanced AI ventures.Isomorphic Labs, an AI-powered drug discovery company spun out of Alphabet Inc.'s Google DeepMind, is in advanced discussions to raise more than $2 billion in a new round of funding, according to people familiar with the plan. Thrive Capital, the venture firm that led Isomorphic Labs' first funding round last year, is set to lead the new financing, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public. Alphabet is also participating, one person said, though the round is not yet closed. Isomorphic Labs is one of a growing number of businesses attempting to apply advances in AI to speed up drug discoveries and cut the costs of such work, despite many failures from Silicon Valley to expand into health and life sciences. Google rival OpenAI, also backed by Thrive, recently introduced a new AI model meant to help accelerate drug discovery. Thrive and Isomorphic Labs declined to comment. Google did not respond to a request for comment. The additional funding would mark another step in Alphabet's longtime plan to turn its futuristic bets into standalone businesses. Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous driving unit, raised $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation earlier this year. Alphabet has a number of high-profile startup investments in the AI space, beyond Google's sister companies such as Waymo and Isomorphic. The company is also a major investor in SpaceX and Anthropic PBC. The success of these investments has boosted Alphabet's profits in recent years. Isomorphic Labs plans to use the new capital for its drug design engine, as well as to expand the business globally, one of the people said. The London-based company, formed in 2021, spun out of DeepMind to explore commercial potential for AlphaFold, an AI program for predicting protein structures. DeepMind Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis also runs Isomorphic Labs, which has recruited heavily from its sister company. The drug discovery unit has forged partnerships with pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly & Co. It has also announced an agreement to expand its work with Novartis.