Isomorphic Laboratories, an AI-driven startup owned by Google parent firm Alphabet, announced plans to foray into drug discovery and development by tapping into the technology of its sister company DeepMind. 

Two very exciting areas where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having an impact on the life sciences landscape are patient stratification and synthetic control arms. Recent data and technology advances are starting to yield compelling results, according to Derek Baird, President North America of Sensyne Health and Commercial Director of SENSE.

Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine closed on a Series C financing round worth $255 million.

CytoReason and Ferring Pharmaceuticals announced a collaboration that pairs CytoReason’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based computational model of the human body with Ferring’s expertise in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The purpose is to develop cell-based disease models to accelerate drug discovery and reduce development costs.

Roger Perlmutter will helm the drug discovery startup Eikon Therapeutics after the industry veteran and former president of Merck Research Laboratories departed the pharma giant at the end of 2020. California-based Eikon emerged from stealth mode with a $148 million Series A financing round.

Mission Bio launched the company’s Pharma Assay Development (PAD) service, enabling its customers to obtain early access services based on the newest technologies as well as on existing products.

In an effort to boost drug discovery for the “toughest drug discovery problems” through the use of machine learning, precision medicines company Relay Therapeutics is acquiring Waltham, Mass.-based ZebiAI with an $85 million upfront payment.

Roivant Sciences, the umbrella company for Vivek Ramaswamy’s series of ‘vant companies, acquired Silicon Therapeutics for $450 million in Roivant equity.

Four more companies secured their place on the stock ticker in a record-breaking year before 2020 comes to a close.  

Javelin Biotech announced a three-year collaboration with Pfizer to design and build what could potentially be an industry-leading platform to evaluate ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) properties of small molecules.