In a recent collaboration with Moderna and IBM Quantum, Fermioniq developed two quantum-centric optimization algorithms to predict mRNA secondary structure — a key challenge in computational biology with direct implications for mRNA-based drug design. The algorithms were implemented on IBM’s quantum processors, solving instances with up to 156 qubits. To explore scalability beyond the capability of current hardware, they used Fermioniq’s Ava to successfully solve a 354-qubit instance, one of the largest end-to-end simulations of a VQE algorithm ever performed.