Chai Discovery
AI foundation models for molecular design, licensed as software to pharmaceutical and life sciences R&D organizations. The models predict and reprogram interactions between biochemical molecules: Chai-1 (2024) for structure prediction, Chai-2 (2025) for fully de novo antibody design, and Chai-3 (2026), which the company describes as roughly doubling the success rate of its predecessor. On Chai-2, the company reports designing all complementarity determining regions from a target and epitope prompt alone, with hit rates reported between roughly 16 and 20 percent depending on the source, against sub 0.1 percent rates the company attributes to prior methods; validation covered approximately 50 antibody targets with fewer than 20 designs tested per target. Models are reported in production at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Novartis, with a collaboration announced with argenx. Unlike vendors that use AI to build their own drug pipeline, Chai's product is the model itself, including custom versions trained on a customer's proprietary data.
Capability Axes
The models are the product. Chai licenses foundation models for molecular structure prediction and de novo antibody design as software to pharmaceutical R&D organizations, including custom versions trained on a customer's proprietary data. There is no non AI version of this offering.
Unusually specific for this index. Named, versioned models with a public release history (Chai-1, Chai-2, Chai-3), stated task scope per model, and technical results published in preprints that describe methodology and validation design. Chai-1 was released with open weights for non commercial use. Model versioning and update practice are visible rather than inferred, which is what this axis asks for.
Quantified wet lab validation with stated design: approximately 50 antibody targets, fewer than 20 designs tested per target, with reported hit rates between roughly 16 and 20 percent depending on source, and reported binders for 5 of 5 miniprotein targets. Evidence is reported in preprints rather than peer reviewed journals, and the figure varies between the company's announcement and the preprint, so the record states a range. Deployment at named pharmaceutical customers is commercial validation, not clinical evidence; no candidate from these models has published clinical results.
No public pricing. Contact the vendor. Commercial terms are licensing agreements with pharmaceutical customers, in at least one case including a custom model trained on customer data; financial terms of announced agreements were not disclosed.
Precisely bounded and honestly stated: preclinical molecular design, principally antibodies and miniproteins, for pharmaceutical and life sciences R&D. The company does not claim clinical or downstream development capability.
Pricing
Vendor-published figures are labeled as such. Figures labeled “Estimated” are derived from third-party sources and have not been confirmed by the vendor.
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Model licensing agreements; custom models trained on customer data | — | — | Vendor Published |
Model licensing agreements with pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations, in at least one announced case including early access to a next generation model and a custom model trained on the customer's proprietary data. Financial terms of announced agreements were not disclosed.