Isomorphic Labs announced that it has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Novartis to discover small molecule therapeutics against three undisclosed targets. Isomorphic Labs operates autonomously within Alphabet, with its own dedicated resources and exclusive focus on the application of AI to drug discovery. 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 GoogleDeepMind, Isomorphic Labs has made remarkable progress in developing the Next Generation of AlphaFold. This new iteration of AlphaFold expands beyond proteins to include small molecules and nucleic acids. Through deep integration of this next-generation AlphaFold with other breakthrough AI models developed at Isomorphic Labs, the company is able to better understand the underlying biological mechanisms of drug targets, and rationally design novel therapeutics.

Under the terms of the agreement, Isomorphic Labs will receive an upfront payment of $37.5 million from Novartis, in addition to Novartis funding of select research costs. Isomorphic Labs is eligible to receive up to $1.2 billion in performance-based milestone payments, excluding the upfront payment and any subsequent tiered royalties from mid-single up to low double-digit royalties on net sales.