Chai Discovery Collaborates With Eli Lilly to Advance AI-Driven Biologics Discovery

The collaboration also includes the development of a purpose-built AI model that will be trained exclusively on Lilly’s proprietary data and tailored to the pharmaceutical company’s internal discovery workflows. 

Chai Discovery, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company focused on computer-aided molecular design, has announced a collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company aimed at accelerating biologics discovery using AI-driven technologies.

Under the agreement, Lilly will deploy Chai Discovery’s AI platform to design novel biologic therapeutics across multiple discovery targets. The collaboration also includes the development of a purpose-built AI model that will be trained exclusively on Lilly’s proprietary data and tailored to the pharmaceutical company’s internal discovery workflows. 

According to Chai Discovery, the partnership follows an evaluation phase during which a set of Chai’s model designs was assessed by Lilly.

Chai Discovery’s platform is designed to support early-stage drug discovery by enabling faster identification and optimization of biologic molecules. A key component of the company’s technology is Chai-2, which it describes as a zero-shot antibody design platform capable of achieving double-digit experimental hit rates. The company states that the platform can design molecules with drug-like properties and compress discovery timelines from months to weeks.

Commenting on the collaboration, Josh Meier, CEO of Chai Discovery, said the partnership combines Chai’s AI model development capabilities with Lilly’s experience in deploying technology within large-scale drug discovery programs. He noted that the custom model trained on Lilly’s data is expected to support AI-enabled approaches in early discovery and development.

The announcement comes shortly after Chai Discovery closed its Series B funding round in December 2025. The round was co-led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst and valued the company at approximately $1.3 billion. Chai Discovery has raised close to $230 million to date, according to the company.

Annie Lamont, co-founder and managing partner at Oak HC/FT, said drug discovery is among the areas expected to see a significant impact from AI adoption. She added that the collaboration brings together AI model development and large-scale pharmaceutical discovery capabilities.

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