量子计算已向药物发现的实际应用推进。Cleveland Clinic、IBM 与 Riken 的联合团队已成功用量子处理器模拟两个酶与候选药物的相互作用。每个酶结构约含 12,000 个原子，使其成为迄今在量子硬件上模拟的最大生物分子。Kenneth Merz 的这项研究以预印本（arXiv:2605.01138）发布，并表明尽管长期以来受制于浅电路、噪声和硬件误差，量子计算在生物学中的相关性正在增加。
更广泛的领域在 Wellcome Leap 的 50,000,000 美元 Quantum for Bio 挑战后获得动能，六支队伍进入决赛。获胜项目（2,000,000 美元奖金）由 Algorithmiq 联合 Cleveland Clinic 与 IBM 领导，模拟了光动力治疗的抗癌药物分子在光照下被激活的过程，并显示其结果优于单独的经典模拟；一个新的机器学习流程也扩大了可测试分子变体并提高了随分子复杂度增加的可扩展性。Wellcome Sanger/Oxford 的一支决赛队伍将丙型肝炎 D 病毒基因组（1,700 个编码单元）加载到 IBM 量子设备上，并提出扩展到人类基因组，该基因组大约大 2,000,000 倍并可覆盖多名个体。
量子应用也正在进入生命科学创业领域：McCafferty 指出风险资本兴趣上升，巴黎的 Qubit Pharmaceuticals 还宣布与新加坡量子技术中心合作。尽管如此，尚无任何已发表结果在真实世界中超过严谨构建的示范，展示出稳健的量子优势。IBM 首席技术官 Jerry Chow 预计，化学和生命科学量子系统将在 2030 年初期实现大规模实际应用；Shihan Sajeed 指出下一阶段是明确量子何时能创造价值、何时不能，以及接下来的发展步骤。
Quantum computing has moved closer to practical drug-discovery use. A joint team from Cleveland Clinic, IBM, and Riken successfully simulated how two enzymes interact with candidate drugs using quantum processors. Each enzyme structure contained around 12,000 atoms, making them the largest biological molecules modeled on quantum hardware so far. Kenneth Merz’s study was posted as a preprint (arXiv:2605.01138), showing that despite long-standing limits from shallow circuits, noise, and hardware errors, quantum computing is becoming increasingly relevant to biology.
Momentum broadened across the field after Wellcome Leap’s US$50,000,000 Quantum for Bio challenge, with six finalists. The winner, led by Algorithmiq with Cleveland Clinic and IBM and awarded a US$2,000,000 prize, modeled an anticancer photodynamic-therapy molecule activated by light, and showed better results than classical simulation alone; a new machine-learning workflow expanded testable molecular variants and improved scalability as complexity increased. A finalist team including the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Oxford loaded the hepatitis D virus genome (1,700 coding units) onto an IBM quantum device and proposed scaling to the human genome, about 2,000,000 times larger across many individuals.
Quantum is also moving into life-science entrepreneurship: McCafferty said venture-capital interest has risen, and Qubit Pharmaceuticals in Paris announced collaboration with the Singapore Centre for Quantum Technologies. Yet no published result has yet demonstrated robust real-world quantum advantage beyond tightly designed demonstrations. IBM CTO Jerry Chow expects quantum chemical and life-science systems to become ready for large-scale practical use in the early 2030s. Shihan Sajeed said the next phase is to identify when quantum adds value, when it does not, and what development steps should follow.