Google (GOOGL.US) is an AI pharmaceutical company Isomorphic Labs to restart financing: it just took 2.1 billion US dollars five months ago, and this round of valuation targets 50 billion US dollars

The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to people familiar with the matter, Isomorphic Labs, an AI drug development startup spun off from Google DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.US), is conducting preliminary negotiations on a new round of financing, with a target valuation of at least 40 billion US dollars.

One of the people familiar with the matter said that the valuation of this round of financing could be as high as 50 billion US dollars. People familiar with the matter said that the financing has not yet been completed, and the details may still change. Isomorphic did not respond to requests for comment.

Just five months ago, Isomorphic Labs closed a $2.1 billion Series B round. At the time, the company's CEO Demis Hassabis (who is also the chairman of DeepMind) said that Alphabet provided a “significant portion” of the funding for this round of financing, but declined to disclose Alphabet's shareholding ratio or company valuation.

Hassabis has been the head of DeepMind until now. In August of this year, he announced his transfer to the position of chairman and became Alphabet's chief scientist while continuing to be the CEO of Isomorphic.

London-based Isomorphic Labs was founded in 2021 and was born out of DeepMind, with the goal of building on the lab's groundbreaking AlphaFold protein folding model. It competes with many companies trying to apply the latest AI technology to the pharmaceutical sector, including OpenAI, which released a life science research model this year.

Although AI developers promise to drastically reduce the time and cost of drug development, few companies have advanced to the clinical trial stage, let alone bring drugs to market. Hassabis has stated that his goal is to shorten the new drug development cycle from a few years to several months.

Isomorphic Labs has announced partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies such as LLY.US (LLY.US) and Novartis (NVS.US), and said it will focus on treating cancer and immune diseases. In addition to cooperating with pharmaceutical companies and exporting their AI drug discovery models, Isomorphic also plans to independently design and develop drugs.