Isomorphic Labs is a commercial enterprise founded in 2021 under Alphabet, created to rethink drug discovery from first principles through an AI-first approach. The company operates on the premise that an isomorphic structure exists between biology and information science, using digital biology methods to model, design, and evaluate biological systems at the molecular level. Its long-term goal is to accelerate AI-driven drug design to develop effective therapies for serious diseases and, ultimately, to contribute to the scientific progress needed to solve all diseases.
Foundation and Corporate Positioning
Isomorphic Labs was established as a spin-out of Google DeepMind, building upon its scientific and technological legacy. Operating within the Alphabet ecosystem, the company has access to Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, and other advanced technical infrastructures.
The company was founded and is led by Demis Hassabis (Founder and CEO), with Colin Murdoch serving as President. The scientific and medical leadership team includes Miles Congreve (Chief Scientific Officer), Max Jaderberg (Chief AI Officer), Sarah Skerratt (Head of Research), Ben Wolf (Chief Medical Officer, as of June 17, 2025), and Sergei Yakneen (Chief Technology Officer).
Sarah Korman oversees legal and business operations, Beverley Mallon manages people and culture, and John Strafford leads partnerships and business development.
Scientific Approach and Technology
Isomorphic Labs employs a “unified drug design engine”—a multi-modal AI stack composed of predictive and generative models designed to operate across diverse therapeutic areas and molecular modalities, from small molecules to biologics.
The company’s research team includes contributors to the AlphaFold project; the release of AlphaFold 3 in May 2024 marked a significant leap in modeling molecular structures and interactions with unprecedented accuracy.
Through extensive in silico modeling, Isomorphic Labs aims to accelerate stages of target validation and compound discovery traditionally performed at the bench, enabling exploration of novel chemical spaces and historically intractable targets with greater speed and precision.
Research Programs and Focus Areas
Internal research programs currently focus on oncology and immunology. The unified design engine supports the end-to-end discovery workflow, including target validation, binding hypothesis testing, candidate design, and interaction network modeling. This approach seeks to improve decision quality while reducing cycle times in candidate selection.
Partnerships and Business Model
The company operates through strategic research collaborations with major pharmaceutical firms.
- On January 7, 2024, Isomorphic Labs announced a partnership with Novartis to discover small-molecule therapeutics for three difficult targets; this collaboration was expanded in February 2025 to include up to three additional programs.
- The collaboration with Eli Lilly focuses on discovering small molecules for undisclosed targets.
- These partnerships are built on four guiding principles: integration of complementary expertise, continuous and deep technical coordination, rapid focus on clinically meaningful outcomes, and prioritization of patient needs.
Leadership, Advisory, and Workforce
Isomorphic Labs’ leadership structure is interdisciplinary, integrating expertise across machine learning, computational chemistry, drug discovery, biology, software, and product engineering.
Its Scientific Advisory Board includes globally recognized figures such as Jennifer Doudna, David MacMillan, Paul Nurse, Mene Pangalos, and Venki Ramakrishnan.
The company’s core values—thoughtful, bold, determined, and together—guide both scientific design and decision-making processes throughout the organization.
Ethics and Responsibility
Isomorphic Labs conducts drug design and AI research under an ethical framework that integrates the principles of medicine, science and engineering, data governance, and business responsibility. The company aims to ensure responsible AI use while safeguarding scientific accuracy and patient safety through robust governance and review processes.
Infrastructure and Ecosystem
Backed by Alphabet’s long-term investment horizon, the company benefits from access to large-scale computational resources and frontier AI research capabilities. Internal programs for learning, development, and scientific exchange support sustainable innovation, ensuring the continuity needed to achieve discovery at the speed and scale envisioned by digital biology.
Timeline and Key Developments
- 2021: Isomorphic Labs officially launched under Alphabet.
- January 2024: Strategic research collaboration announced with Novartis.
- May 2024: Publication of AlphaFold 3, enabling higher-accuracy interaction modeling.
- 2024: Strategic collaboration established with Eli Lilly.
- February 2025: Novartis partnership expanded to up to three additional programs.
- June 2025: Appointment of Dr. Ben Wolf as Chief Medical Officer and establishment of U.S. presence.
Isomorphic Labs aims to integrate AI and computational biology within a single design engine to accelerate and de-risk the entire drug discovery cycle. Supported by its corporate ecosystem, strategic partnerships, and scientific advisory board, the company provides a systematic framework for advancing high-value therapeutic candidates against the world’s most challenging targets—representing a long-term effort to make digital biology scalable, reproducible, and transformative for modern medicine.
