AI drug discovery platforms

Finding the molecule that acts on a disease, with software and AI models beside the chemist

Picture the cream the skin doctor prescribed to the patient in Texas, in Market Segment 22.1, Electronic health record (EHR) software. Its active ingredient is a molecule. More than ten years earlier, a team of scientists had to find that molecule, among billions that might have worked.

Industry Vertical 25, Pharma and life sciences, is the last one in Domain VI, Healthtech and life sciences. It follows a medicine from the laboratory to the patient. It begins with discovery: finding a molecule that acts on a disease. That work is now done as much on computers as at the laboratory bench:

software that models how molecules behave
platforms that organise biological data
AI models that propose new candidate molecules

This Market Segment is about those tools. Their buyers are drug companies, biotech companies and research laboratories. It is a small Market Segment, with six companies. (More on the AI models underneath in Market Segment 9.1, Foundation model companies, in Industry Vertical 9, AI labs and model platforms.)

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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What this section holds

What this section holds

Back to the molecule in the skin cream from the start of this Market Segment. Its discovery would have started from a target: a protein in the body that the disease depends on. The scientists then had to find a molecule that fits that target, the way a key fits a lock.

Discovery starts from a target, a protein the disease depends on, and looks for a molecule that fits it the way a key fits a lock: software models the molecule (OpenEye, Albert Invent), platforms organise the biological data (Elucidata, Biostate AI), and models predict and find candidates (MetFlux Research, Enveda), before anything is tested at the bench.

Modelling the molecule

OpenEye (Cadence Molecular Sciences)

with engineers in Bengaluru, has the most job postings in this Market Segment. It sells the software with which chemists model molecules, and search for ones that fit a target. It is now owned by Cadence, the chip-design software company. (More on Cadence in Market Segment 35.7, Chip design software (EDA), in Industry Vertical 35, Semiconductors and chip design.)

Albert Invent

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells an AI platform for chemistry and materials research, from the first experiment to the final recipe of a product, called the formulation.

Organising the biological data

Elucidata

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells Polly. Polly cleans biological and genetic data, and puts it into one consistent form, so discovery teams can use it.

Biostate AI

sells RNA sequencing, which reads which genes are active in a cell, with an AI assistant to analyse the results.

Predicting and finding

MetFlux Research

with engineers in Bengaluru, models the human body's processes on a computer, which is called in silico. It uses this to predict how a drug will behave in the body.

Enveda

with engineers in Hyderabad, uses AI to find new medicines in the chemistry of plants.

The molecule designed by a model.

AI models can now predict the 3D shape of a protein, and generate new molecules to fit it. That has moved discovery from screening the molecules that already exist to designing ones that do not. The first drugs designed by AI are now in clinical trials. The open question is whether they succeed more often than drugs found the old way.

Screening tests the molecules that already exist against a target; designing has a model predict the target's 3D shape and generate new molecules to fit it.

So the molecule in the patient's skin cream from the start of this Market Segment began as a search among billions. Today that search starts on a computer, with software that models the target, the data and the candidates, before anything is tested at the bench.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What pharma and life sciences companies hire for.

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