2.1 Billion Dollars - The Largest AI Pharma Funding Ever Raised is Born

May 13, 2011 - Isomorphic Labs, a UK-based R&D company for AI drugs spun out of Google DeepMind, yesterday announced the completion of theUS$2.1 billion (approximately RMB 14.3 billion)B roundfinancing.

The round was led by Thrive Capital for the second consecutive year, followed by longtime shareholders such as Alphabet and GV, and joined by new investors such as MGX, Temasek, and the UK's sovereign AI fund. The valuation after this round has not been disclosed.

According to foreign media Ventureburn, the financing set a new record for a single financing in the global AI pharmaceutical industry.

Founded in 2021, Isomorphic Labs is a spin-off of Alphabet's AI research lab, Google DeepMind, focused on theCommercialization of the AlphaFold protein structure prediction model.. Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, is the founder and CEO of Isomorphic Labs, which has also taken on a large number of core research and engineering talent from DeepMind.

▲ Demis Hassabis

Isomorphic Labs completed its first round of externalUS$600 million (about RMB 4.08 billion)financing, this planned financing is the size of the first round of financingmore than triple.

The company said the new funds will be used primarily to expand itsAI Drug Design Engine IsoDDE, advancing its globalized business layout and accelerating the advancement of its drug candidate development pipeline to the clinical stage. At the same time, the company also plans to expand the scale of talent recruitment, in London headquarters, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Lausanne, Switzerland and other office locations, to further attract AI, engineering research and development, drug design and clinical development and other areas of talent.

Protein structure resolution has been a central challenge in biology for the past decades. While traditional experiments often take years and are costly, AlphaFoldPredicting protein structure using AI, dramatically shortening research cycles, could help scientists design drugs and treat diseases more effectively.In 2020, AlphaFold2 performed close to experimental accuracy in the CASP protein structure prediction competition. With this achievement, Hassabis and two other scientists were jointly awarded the 2024Nobel prize for chemistry.

However, for Isomorphic Labs, protein structure prediction is just the first step. The really difficult part is how to actually translate AI capabilities into a new drug development system that can be scaled to the ground.

The company's focus on IsoDDE consists of a number of proprietary AI models that can cover multiple therapeutic areas with different drug modalities and have high-precision prediction capabilities, in an attempt to further bridge the long-standing technological barriers between protein structure prediction and actual drug design.Isomorphic Labs says the funding will also be used to continue to advance IsoDDE development and accelerate in-house therapeutic programs into clinical trials.

According to Bloomberg, part of the reason why the financing has generated so much industry attention is also because in January, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Hassabis had shifted the timeline for the company's first clinical trial fromEnd of 2025 deferred to end of 2026As of today, no compounds developed by Isomorphic Labs have entered human clinical trials. To date, no compounds developed in-house by Isomorphic Labs have entered human clinical trials.

In the announcement of this funding round, Hassabis said, “Now that we've demonstrated that our approach is fundamentally sound, our focus is on expanding the technology to its full potential.”

At the same time, the company is continuing to push for industry partnerships. Currently, Isomorphic Labs has partnered withJohnson & Johnson, Eli LillyThe company has established cooperative relationships with global pharmaceutical giants, including Isomorphic Labs. These collaborations not only mean that traditional pharmaceutical companies are gradually accepting the AI-native drug development model, but also help Isomorphic Labs to obtain data, experimental feedback and industrial resources in real R&D scenarios.

More and more pharmaceutical companies are accelerating the introduction of AI partners, and the scope of cooperation is gradually expanding from drug design to supply chain, R&D process optimization and other aspects. For example.Novo Nordisk (brand)Last month's announcement of a partnership withOpenAI(b) Extensive cooperation; andSanofiIt has also been simultaneously linked to theOpenAIPartnership with Formation Bio.

Conclusion: AI pharma finally needs to hit the ground running to deliver medicinal value

As more tech giants, sovereign funds and traditional pharmaceutical companies continue to step up, the AI pharma industry is moving from an early proof-of-concept stage to a truly industrialized competitive stage.

However, compared to Internet products that can quickly validate the market, AI drug development ultimately still needs to prove its value through a long clinical trial and drug approval process. For Isomorphic Labs, the $2.1 billion financing is just the beginning, and the real challenge remains whether it can translate AI capabilities into new drugs that are actually approved for marketing.

Source: Smart Stuff