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Pfizer $PFE has licensed the AI drug discovery platform of startup Chai Discovery, giving the pharmaceutical company access to generative AI models designed to accelerate how it identifies and designs new molecules.
Through the deal, Pfizer gains access to two tools: Chai-3, a model the startup had not previously disclosed publicly, and a bespoke model trained on Pfizer's own data and configured to fit its discovery processes, the company said.
The announcement says the new model is a major improvement, reducing the failure rate in antibody design by half compared to the last version, while still producing candidates that meet therapeutic standards. It also improves binding in therapeutic settings, helps engineer multi-specific molecules, and works better against targets that traditional drug discovery methods have found difficult.
Its immediate predecessor, Chai-2, debuted in 2025 and broke new ground as the earliest zero-shot platform to hit double-digit experimental success rates — an achievement the company describes as roughly 100 times better than what earlier computational tools could deliver — shrinking timelines that once stretched across months into a matter of weeks.
"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," Chai Discovery co-founder Joshua Meier said in a statement.
Chai Discovery, founded in 2024 by Joshua Meier, Jack Dent, Matthew McPartlon, and Jacques Boitreaud, is based in San Francisco. At its core, Chai's technology uses generative AI to model and alter how molecules interact with one another, giving researchers tools to engineer biomolecules toward defined functional outcomes. Investors in the company include Oak HC/FT, General Catalyst, OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Dimension.
The deal reflects a broader shift in the pharmaceutical industry toward deploying AI models in active drug discovery workflows rather than research settings. Pfizer, which reported first-quarter revenue of $14.45 billion driven by growth in oncology and recently launched products, has been pushing to expand its R&D pipeline. CEO Dr. Albert Bourla said in May that the company's pipeline is advancing across multiple fronts, with positive Phase 3 readouts building momentum.
The Pfizer agreement is not the only major pharma-AI pairing in recent months. Merck $MRK and Google $GOOGL Cloud announced a multi-year partnership valued at up to $1 billion to deploy an AI agent platform spanning R&D, manufacturing, and commercial operations.