After a few years of booming interest in AI platforms, the rubber has hit the road. Now, the market is watching closely to see if drugs discovered with the new tech will pan out in the clinic — and are still worth backing.

Isomorphic Labs has raised a whopping $600 million to refine its artificial intelligence-powered drug discovery engine, advance its pipeline, and expand its headcount in its first external funding round.

The first quarter of 2024 saw 115 agreed research and development partnerships totaling $36 billion. Eight of the top ten ranked by deal value involved technology platforms for developing a broad range of therapeutics, and three included Novartis as it expands its RNA and gene-based programs.

The artificial intelligence program AlphaFold 3, rolled out by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs earlier this month, has been called “groundbreaking,” holding transformative potential in drug discovery.

The hype is warranted, said Patrick Bangert, senior vice president of data, analytics, and AI at Searce, a cloud services company.