Isomorphic Labs Raises $2.1 Billion to Scale AI Drug Discovery and Advance Clinical Trials

Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs raises $2.1bn in Series B funding

The organisation plans to use the investment as a means of accelerating the application of its AI model, at scale. AI-powered drug design and development company Isomorphic Labs has announced the raising of $2.1bn in Series B funding. The round was led by Thrive Capital and includes participation from existing backers Alphabet and GV alongside new investors MGX, Temasek, CapitalG and the UK Sovereign AI Fund. Founded in 2021 and led by CEO Demis Hassabis and its president Max Jaderberg, Isomorphic Labs is headquartered in London and has additional premises in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Lausanne, Switzerland. The company, which is a spin-off from Google DeepMind, an AI research lab acquired by Alphabet in 2014, aims to address the challenges of drug discovery using AI technology. Isomorphic labs intends to put the recently raised funds towards the continued development and deployment of its AI drug design engine (IsoDDE) and the acceleration and expansion of its pipeline of therapeutic programmes. Additionally, the funding will support current hiring targets. Commenting on the announcement Ruth Porat, the president and chief investment officer at Alphabet and Google said, "The application of AI in healthcare offers a profound opportunity. "Isomorphic Labs has already made extraordinary progress in harnessing AI to accelerate drug discovery, and we are excited by this momentum and the early promise of the technology platform.This trajectory is encouraging, and this funding will be used to accelerate the work and bring important interventions to market with greater speed." Jaderberg added, "This milestone is built on the strength of our AI drug design engine, which has already proven its worth across our internal programmes by hitting key milestones and identifying viable candidates with unprecedented speed. "Our drug design engine works, and it's giving us a repeatable way to design new medicines for a wide range of diseases, building a future of medicine that was previously out of reach." Reportedly, Isomorphic expects to run its first clinical trials by the end of 2026, a delay from the CEO's earlier target of having AI-designed drugs in trials by the end of 2025. In late April, Alphabet was among some of the large scale organisations posting positive quarterly reports. Alphabet beat revenue expectations for the past quarter, led by its growing cloud business, which rose 63pc to hit $20bn. Consolidated revenue grew 22pc to nearly $110bn. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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-backed Isomorphic raises $2.1 billion to scale AI-driven drug discovery

AI drug discovery firm Isomorphic Labs secured a massive $2.1 billion funding round, aiming to accelerate its mission to cure all diseases. Led by Thrive Capital, the investment will scale their drug design engine, with initial clinical trials now anticipated by late 2026. Isomorphic Labs, an artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company, said on Wednesday it has raised $2.1 billion in its latest funding round led by existing investor Thrive Capital. The funding round, completed at an undisclosed valuation, also included other existing investors, Google Ventures and Alphabet, along with new ⁠backers ⁠MGX, Temasek and CapitalG. The development comes amid a broader industry push to demonstrate practical applications of AI in the healthcare sector, including its ability to accelerate research and development along with shortening drug discovery timelines. "This capital injection allows us to build out our drug design engine at scale, driving ⁠us forward in our mission to solve all diseases," said founder and CEO Demis Hassabis. Isomorphic was founded in 2021 ⁠as a spin-off from Google DeepMind, an AI research lab acquired by Alphabet in 2014. One of DeepMind and Hassabis' most celebrated breakthroughs was AlphaFold, an AI program that can predict protein structures, which can help scientists design drugs and target diseases more effectively. "Now that we have shown our approach is fundamentally sound, our focus is on scaling our technology to its full potential," said Hassabis. The company now expects its first clinical trials by the ⁠end of 2026 - a delay from the CEO's earlier target of having AI-designed drugs in trials by the end of 2025. The London-based company raised $600 million in its first funding round last year, also led by Thrive Capital, a major backer of AI-focused companies. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the valuation.

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.

Alphabet-Backed Isomorphic Labs Raises $2.1 Billion for AI Drug Development

Isomorphic Labs raised $2.1 billion in its Series B funding round to boost its artificial-intelligence drug design pipeline across multiple therapeutic areas. The subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet said Tuesday that U.S. capital venture firm Thrive Capital once again led the funding round, which included additional participation from existing backers and new investors such as MGX, Temasek, CapitalG and the U.K. Sovereign AI Fund. The London-based AI company will use the investment to advance its AI research and development and expand its team. ""This funding round is a massive vote of confidence from a diverse group of top-tier international investors in our AI-first approach to drug design and development,? said Chief Executive Demis Hassabis, who also helms Google's AI division DeepMind. "Now that we have shown our approach is fundamentally sound, our focus is on scaling our technology to its full potential," he added. Isomorphic Labs developed the AI platform AlphaFold, which can accurately predict a protein's structure in minutes--an important component of drug discovery. It has partnered with U.S. pharma giant Eli Lilly and Swiss drugmaker Novartis for drug design and development through AI.