Digital biology company Isomorphic Labs – a company to redefine drug discovery using the power of AI – recently announced that it has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company. This is Isomorphic Labs’ first pharmaceutical partnership.
Under the terms of the deal, Isomorphic Labs will partner with Lilly to discover small molecule therapeutics against multiple targets and will receive an upfront cash payment of $45 million. And Isomorphic Labs can receive up to $1.7 billion in performance-based milestone payments, excluding the upfront payment and any subsequent tiered royalties of up to low double digits on net sales.
Isomorphic Labs operates autonomously within Alphabet, with its own dedicated resources and exclusive focus on applying AI to drug discovery. And the company is reimagining the entire drug discovery process from first principles with an AI-first approach, working to build powerful new predictive and generative models of biological phenomena to anticipate how drugs will perform and design novel molecules.
Building on the success of AlphaFold and working in collaboration with Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs made remarkable progress in developing the Next Generation of AlphaFold. And this new iteration of AlphaFold expands beyond proteins to include small molecules and nucleic acids. With deep integration of this next-generation AlphaFold with other breakthrough AI models developed at Isomorphic Labs, the company can better understand the underlying biological mechanisms of drug targets and rationally design novel therapeutics.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’re thrilled to embark on this partnership and apply our proprietary technology platform, the next generation of AlphaFold, and access to massive computing power to Lilly’s development programs. The focus we share on advancing groundbreaking drug design approaches and appreciation of state-of-the-art science makes this partnership particularly compelling.”
— Demis Hassabis, CEO and founder of Isomorphic Labs
