Chai Discovery Announces Collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company to Accelerate Biologics Discovery

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SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 9, 2026--

Chai Discovery, the AI company building a computer-aided design suite for molecules, today announced a collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) to accelerate biologics discovery using artificial intelligence.

Under the collaboration, Lilly will deploy Chai’s frontier AI platform to design novel biologic therapeutics for multiple targets. In addition, Chai will develop a purpose-built AI model, exclusively for use by Lilly, trained on large-scale proprietary Lilly data and tailored to Lilly’s discovery workflows. The collaboration follows a period during which a set of Chai’s model designs were evaluated by Lilly.

“Our collaboration with Lilly brings together the strengths of both organizations, combining Chai’s expertise in building frontier models with Lilly’s ability to deploy technology to accelerate their efforts to make a positive impact on the lives of patients. Beyond providing access to our core models, training custom models trained on Lilly’s data presents the opportunity to expand the boundaries of AI-enabled early-stage drug discovery and development,” said Josh Meier, CEO of Chai Discovery.

Chai-2 is the first zero-shot antibody design platform to achieve double-digit experimental hit rates and design molecules with drug-like properties, enabling discovery processes to be completed in weeks that previously required months. This collaboration comes on the heels of Chai Discovery’s Series B funding round co-led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst in December 2025, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. Chai has raised nearly $230M to date.

“Drug discovery is one of the areas that stands to benefit most from AI transformation, and Chai is the leader in building frontier models to reshape the category,” said Annie Lamont, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Oak HC/FT. “Chai’s partnership with Lilly brings together two of the most innovative market leaders in their respective fields and is a clear signal that novel medicines may be designed on a computer during this generation.”

About Chai Discovery

Chai Discovery builds frontier artificial intelligence to predict and reprogram the interactions between biochemical molecules, the fundamental building blocks of life. Its mission is to transform biology from science into engineering. The team hails from pioneering research and applied AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta FAIR, Stripe, and Google X, and is backed by top investors including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Dimension. To learn more about Chai Discovery, visit https://www.chaidiscovery.com/

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KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH SOFTWARE BIOTECHNOLOGY HEALTH PHARMACEUTICAL OTHER SCIENCE SCIENCE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

SOURCE: Chai Discovery

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PUB: 01/09/2026 09:00 AM/DISC: 01/09/2026 09:00 AM

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