The Financial Times of the UK reported on December 3 that Isomorphic Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, is strengthening its operations by recruiting pharmaceutical talents and opening a new office. This artificial intelligence drug research and development start-up is getting closer to reaching its first commercial deal.
Last November, this group, registered in the UK, split from Google's AI division DeepMind to focus on using AI technology to develop new drugs for treating and preventing diseases. According to informed sources, Isomorphic Labs is currently in negotiations with major pharmaceutical companies, and a deal is expected to be announced within the next few months.
Isomorphic Labs' work leverages DeepMind's AlphaFold2 technology, which predicts the structure of human proteins. To lead its efforts in drug discovery, Isomorphic has hired several executives and employees with backgrounds in science, pharmaceuticals, and machine learning to develop computer systems capable of learning from data. The company is also expanding beyond its London headquarters, establishing a second office in Lausanne, Switzerland, where many pharmaceutical giants such as Roche, Novartis, and Bayer are located.