Isomorphic Labs

An Alphabet company, spun out of Google DeepMind in London, that uses AI to design new medicines faster.

About Isomorphic Labs

Isomorphic Labs is a drug discovery company that uses AI to design new medicines. Instead of relying only on the traditional, slow process of testing huge numbers of chemicals in a lab, it builds AI models that predict how molecules and proteins behave, so scientists can find promising drug candidates much faster. Its long-term hope is to help find cures for some of the most devastating diseases.

The company grew out of Google DeepMind's AlphaFold, the AI system that solved the decades-old problem of predicting the 3D shape of a protein from its amino-acid sequence. Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind, set up Isomorphic Labs in London, incorporating it in February 2021 and announcing it in November 2021 as a new company under Alphabet. He serves as its chief executive. It has offices in London and in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Isomorphic describes its mission as reimagining the entire drug discovery process from first principles with an AI-first approach. It treats biology as an information-processing system, and ultimately wants to model and understand the fundamental mechanisms of life. Its leaders say it brings together experts in AI, biology, medicinal chemistry, biophysics and engineering in one team.

In 2024 Isomorphic and Google DeepMind released AlphaFold 3, which predicts how proteins interact with other molecules such as drugs and antibodies, and which is free for non-commercial research. Isomorphic has announced partnerships with the pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Eli Lilly. In early 2026 it announced a new Drug Design Engine, which the company says performs substantially better than AlphaFold 3 on a benchmark, though that claim comes from the company itself and has not been independently checked.

Isomorphic Labs mixes scientists from very different fields, so it is a good example of a career that combines coding and mathematics with chemistry and biology. The pages we read do not describe internships or graduate schemes, so students should check the careers page for current roles.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Predictive and generative AI models used to design drug candidates.', 'title': 'AI drug design'}
• {'desc': 'Building on AlphaFold to predict how molecules interact.', 'title': 'Protein and molecule modelling'}
• {'desc': 'Collaborations with large drug companies, including Novartis and Eli Lilly.', 'title': 'Pharma partnerships'}

Key facts

• Founded: London, announced November 2021 (incorporated February 2021)
• Headquarters: London, UK, with an office in Lausanne, Switzerland
• Founder and CEO: Demis Hassabis
• An Alphabet company, spun out of DeepMind's AlphaFold work
• AlphaFold 3 released with Google DeepMind in May 2024

Website: www.isomorphiclabs.com