A quantum tech firm that has collaborated with—and received investment from—Amgen is now planning to go public.
Quantinuum was created in 2021 when industrial manufacturing juggernaut Honeywell spun off its quantum computing hardware business and merged it with a U.K.-based software firm. The resulting entity now has a global workforce of around 700 employees and touts itself as the “world’s largest integrated quantum company.”
The quantum computing company has yet to disclose how many shares it is planning to offer—or at what price—but expects to list its stock on the Nasdaq under the ticker “QNT.”
Quantum computing is based on the principles of quantum physics, which describes the behavior of atoms and particles. Unlike a traditional computer, whose CPU performs calculations using bits that have a value of 0 or 1, quantum computers store information in so-called quantum bits, or qubits, which can simultaneously be both 0 and 1 as well as an infinite number of states in between. In principle, this means they could solve problems far beyond the reach of today’s traditional supercomputers.
After steadily growing in recent years, venture capital investment in quantum-focused companies exploded in 2025. In fact, last year saw $3.8 billion in VC deal activity in the sector, according to PitchBook data shared with Fierce Biotech, with another $581 million landing within the first two months of 2026 alone.
But quantum companies can burn through money fast. While Quantinuum entered April with $677 million in cash and equivalents, a net loss of $136.6 million in the first three months of the year alone suggests it’s no surprise the company is seeking a fresh infusion of funds.
Still, some Big Pharmas have been keen to buy a ticket on the quantum train. That includes Amgen, which has collaborated with Quantinuum to explore how using quantum computing could improve peptide-binding classification for the design of new therapeutic proteins.
In 2024, Amgen also participated in Quantinuum’s $300 million equity fundraise. In Quantinuum’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday, the company namechecked its partnership with Amgen and listed pharmaceuticals as one of the primary focuses of its “active customer engagements.”
Speaking to Fierce back in March, Alan Russell, VP of R&D Technology and Innovation at Amgen, said the partnership with Quantinuum had been the Big Pharma’s “third strategic push that we’ve made in this area.”
“Each time, I think what we're doing is asking this question of when is the moment that quantum value can be established for the kind of drug discovery work that we're doing?” Russell told Fierce at the time.
“With Quantinuum, we just decided that this looks like an extraordinary platform,” he added.
Amgen is far from the only Big Pharma to have begun exploring the quantum realm. Boehringer Ingelheim entered into a partnership with Google Quantum AI in 2021, while Pfizer has linked up with XtalPi, a U.S.-China pharmaceutical tech company whose work has been pioneered by a group of quantum physicists.
Meanwhile, Germany-based Merck KGaA penned a 2019 collaboration with German startup HQS Quantum Simulations, as well as a 2020 pact with London-based outfit Rahko focused on how quantum-based machine learning could be harnessed to develop new medicinal products and molecules.