London-based firm Isomorphic Labs has raised a mammoth $600m to refine its AI-powered drug discovery engine and grow its team.
The raise marks the firm’s first external funding round and the financing was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Google Ventures and Alphabet.
The startup is led by DeepMind founder Sir Demis Hassabis, who launched it in 2021. It now counts pharma giants Eli Lilly and Novartis as clients.
Isomorphic Labs was founded with the aim of using AI to accelerate drug discovery and bring treatments to millions of patients globally.
The company is looking to apply its AI drug design engine to deliver biomedical breakthroughs and is currently advancing drug design programmes in various areas.
“We’re excited to bring together a top-tier investor group with deep AI and life sciences expertise as we aim to transform this industry through an interdisciplinary approach,” said Hassabis.
“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 diseases with the help of AI.”
Joshua Kushner, founder and CEO at Thrive, added: “At Thrive, we aim to invest in category-defining companies with singular conviction, and that has led us to Isomorphic Labs.”
“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.”