Pfizer and Chai Discovery have agreed on a licensing deal enabling the former to incorporate Chai’s AI platform into its drug discovery operations.
This partnership provides the biopharmaceutical company with early access to the Chai-3 model alongside a dedicated model tailored to Pfizer’s proprietary data and workflows, underscoring a strategic move towards AI for drug discovery acceleration.
Chai Discovery develops generative AI solutions capable of predicting and reprogramming molecular interactions, which allows scientists to design biomolecules with specific functional properties.
The company’s platforms aim to streamline the traditionally time-consuming early stages of drug discovery by enabling the design of biomolecules from scratch, targeting complex biological processes, and shortening discovery cycles.
Chai Discovery co-founder Joshua Meier said: “Our work with Pfizer is about putting Chai’s software directly into the hands of one of the world’s leading drug discovery organisations.
“By combining Chai’s frontier AI platform with Pfizer’s scientific depth, data and discovery capabilities, we see an opportunity to expand and accelerate what is possible in biologics discovery and help Pfizer pursue targets that traditional methods have struggled to reach.”
According to the agreement, Pfizer will become one of the first pharmaceutical companies to access Chai’s newly revealed Chai-3 model.
This AI model reportedly delivers significant advances in AI-led antibody design, including a doubled success rate compared to its predecessor, production of therapeutically viable antibodies, and enhancements in targeting difficult-to-drug molecules.
Chai-3’s development builds on the earlier Chai-2 model, which introduced zero-shot antibody design and improved experimental hit rates.
The Chai-2 platform enabled the design of drug-like molecules and improved efficiency by shortening discovery timelines from several months to just a few weeks.
The Pfizer partnership demonstrates a growing trend of pharmaceutical companies adopting advanced AI models to accelerate transitions from research breakthroughs to integration within real-world drug discovery workflows.
Last month, Pfizer and Innovent Biologics signed a global licensing and collaboration agreement worth up to $10.5bn for the research and development of a portfolio of 12 early-stage cancer medications.
