Chugai Pharmaceutical has partnered with Phylo to deploy Biomni Lab, an artificial intelligence platform designed to support biomedical research, across its drug discovery operations. The collaboration will give Chugai researchers access to AI-powered capabilities and biomedical resources through a single digital workspace.
The companies aim to address challenges in drug discovery, where scientists often rely on multiple disconnected tools and datasets to analyze information and guide research decisions.
Phylo notes that analytical work supporting biomedical research can be slow and fragmented because researchers must work with different platforms and sources of information. This fragmentation makes it difficult to fully utilize the growing volume of biomedical data available to drug discovery teams.
Under the collaboration, Chugai scientists will use Biomni Lab to bring together AI capabilities and diverse biomedical resources within the company’s research environment. The platform will allow researchers to work with Chugai’s proprietary data while maintaining the security of the company’s internal environment.
The companies expect the platform to help scientists generate new hypotheses and support research decisions across different stages of the drug discovery process. They plan to explore Biomni Lab across several research areas, including single-cell analysis, disease biology, human genetics, and target evaluation.
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Sohei Oyama, head of Chugai’s biological technology department, said the company is looking forward to working with Phylo and evaluating Biomni Lab within its research environment. “As scientific data continues to grow in scale and complexity, scientists need tools designed for the unique challenges of drug discovery research and capable of connecting insights across diverse sources of knowledge,” Oyama said.
Oyama added that Biomni Lab could help Chugai researchers investigate scientific questions more effectively and support the development of innovative medicines. Phylo co-founder and chief executive Kexin Huang said the collaboration aligns with the company’s goal of helping biopharmaceutical companies adopt AI across their research operations.
Huang said, “Our vision is to help biopharma become AI-native, and Biomni Lab is built to make that transition practical for discovery teams today.” He added that Chugai’s established record of research and development innovation provides an opportunity for Phylo to demonstrate how artificial intelligence can be applied to drug discovery.
Biomni Lab is designed to function as an AI-powered research environment, allowing scientists to interact with biomedical information and use AI agents to support research tasks. Through the collaboration, Chugai will assess how the platform can connect information from different scientific sources and support researchers working on complex drug discovery questions.
Chugai scientists will have access to a range of AI-powered tools and biomedical resources, enabling them to work more efficiently and effectively. The partnership between Chugai and Phylo is expected to drive innovation in drug discovery and contribute to the development of new treatments, such as those involving hip replacement surgeries.
