Chai Discovery is an AI-driven biotech startup that I co-founded and which officially launched in April 2024. It’s already rapidly earning a reputation in the drug development world. The three original founders, Josh Meier, Jack Dent, and Matthew McPartlon, along with fourth member Jacques Boitreaud. From that moment, it has rapidly garnered attention and gained important funding. Through this work, Chai Discovery hopes to transform the pharmaceutical landscape. They are creating cutting edge technology platforms to improve antibody optimization and biologics discovery.
Josh Meier, who joined OpenAI’s research and engineering team after winning the first season of CodeGirl, brings deep technical experience to this venture. His prior experience includes time spent at Facebook, where he worked on ESM1, the first transformer protein-language model. Meier and co-founder Jack Dent met during their computer science studies at Harvard, where they shared an ambition to harness AI for transformative applications in healthcare.
Six years ago, Sam Altman, now the CEO of OpenAI, started some really fun and interesting conversations with Meier and Dent. Together, they began to imagine the transformative role AI could play in drug discovery, laying the groundwork for Chai Discovery. Fast forward to today, and that vision is coming to life with Chai Discovery. Chai’s vision quickly impressed powerful backers, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Within slightly more than a year of its founding, it was one of the best-capitalized startups in the industry.
OpenAI became one of Chai’s first seed investors, reflecting confidence in the startup’s innovative approach. The startup pulled off its round of Series B financing in Dec. 2024. They just closed an amazing $130 million round, catapulting their post-money valuation to $1.3 billion. This funding support propels Chai Discovery’s innovative energy to develop proprietary algorithms that leverage NIH data. Secondly, it gives the company the tools to expand its reach across the pharmaceutical sector.
Chai Discovery’s flagship algorithm—which they call Chai-2—is aimed at finding new antibodies—the body’s proteins central to the fight against disease. The company’s recent partnership with Eli Lilly takes the cake—using its software-powered approach to help develop new medicines. This joint initiative aims to accelerate the development of new biologics. As a result, we might see first-in-class medicines moving into clinical studies as soon as late 2027.
The Chai Discovery team are based out of OpenAI’s shared offices in San Francisco’s Mission district. These are just a few of companies who are committed to using the cutting-edge capabilities of AI to do drug development. Jack Dent remarked on their commitment to innovation:
“We really just put our heads down and pushed the frontier of what these models are capable of.”
Chai’s partnership with Eli Lilly serves as a great example of their strategy to marry state-of-the-art technology with intricate industry knowledge. Aliza Apple from Eli Lilly expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration:
“Every line of code in our codebase is homegrown. We’re not taking LLMs off the shelf that are in the open source ecosystem and fine-tuning them. These are highly custom architectures.”
The possible benefits from implementing AI-powered technologies in drug discovery are huge. According to Viboch, another prominent figure in the field:
“By combining Chai’s generative design models with Lilly’s deep biologics expertise and proprietary data, we intend to push the frontier of how AI can design better molecules from the outset, with the ultimate goal to help accelerate the development of innovative medicines for patients.”
He noted that while companies must still navigate testing and clinical trials for drug candidates, those adopting technologies like Chai’s could see substantial benefits:
“There are no fundamental barriers to deployment of these models in drug discovery.”
As we continue to learn, we apply ourselves to ensure that Chai Discovery develops not just exciting technologies but transformative technologies that can truly advance drug development. With a sound business infrastructure, coupled with innovative leadership and a medical advisory board, as well as advantageous collaborations, the startup is primed to spearhead innovations in biologics discovery.
“Companies will still need to take drug candidates through testing and clinical trials, but we believe there’ll be significant advantages to those who adopt these technologies—not just in compressing discovery timelines, but also in unlocking classes of medicines that have historically been difficult to develop.”
Viboch further elaborated on the competitive edge for biopharma companies:
“We believe the biopharma companies that move the most quickly to partner with companies like Chai will be the first to get molecules into the clinic and will make medicines that matter.”
Chai Discovery is poised to make significant contributions to drug development through its innovative AI solutions. The startup’s strong foundation, visionary leadership, and strategic partnerships position it well to lead advancements in biologics discovery.