Isomorphic Labs
Alphabet's AI drug-discovery company, turning the AlphaFold breakthrough into new medicines.
About
Isomorphic Labs is the Alphabet subsidiary spun out of Google DeepMind in 2021 to apply AI to drug discovery, building on the AlphaFold protein-folding breakthrough that won Demis Hassabis and John Jumper the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Its core product is IsoDDE, an AI drug design engine for predicting binding pockets and designing novel molecules, developed with DeepMind alongside AlphaFold 3. The company has drug-development deals with Eli Lilly and Novartis worth up to about $3 billion, and Hassabis has said the first clinical trials could start by the end of 2026.
Funding is enormous: a $2.1 billion Series B led by Thrive Capital closed in May 2026, and Bloomberg reported in October 2026 that the company was in early talks to raise again at a $40-50 billion valuation. Headcount is around 440 across London, Lausanne, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The honest caveat, which Bloomberg flagged explicitly, is that no AI-designed drug from the company has entered a human trial yet, so the valuation rests on platform promise and preclinical work rather than clinical proof.
What it can do
- IsoDDE AI drug design engine
- Protein-ligand binding pocket prediction
- Novel molecule design across therapeutic modalities
- AlphaFold 3 co-development with Google DeepMind
- Multi-target pharma research collaborations
- Preclinical drug candidate pipeline
Setup
- Isomorphic Labs is a closed R&D company, not a self-serve tool.
- Researchers can access AlphaFold 3 through Google DeepMind's academic channels.
- Pharma and biotech organizations engage via partnership deals announced by the company.
- Follow press@isomorphiclabs.com or the company site for partnership and hiring updates.
Prerequisites
No public self-serve product; partnerships and employment are the access routes.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: $2.1B Series B led by Thrive Capital, May 2026 (PR Newswire); $40-50B valuation talks reported by Bloomberg Oct 2026; partnerships with Lilly and Novartis; founders' Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024; ~440 employees (TipRanks, Oct 2026). Strengths: unmatched scientific pedigree, top-tier backers, pharma partnerships. Docked for: (1) no drug in human trials yet, so clinical proof is pending; (2) closed R&D company with no public product access. License: proprietary.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 9.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 7.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · $2.1B Series B led by Thrive Capital, May 2026 (PR Newswire)
- · $40-50B valuation talks reported by Bloomberg, Oct 2026
- · Partnerships with Eli Lilly and Novartis worth up to ~$3B
- · Founders' 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold
- · ~440 employees across London, Lausanne, Cambridge MA (TipRanks, Oct 2026)
- · No drug in human trials yet; clinical proof pending
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.