XtalPi

XtalPi is an American-Chinese company operating the Inclusive Digital Drug Discovery and Development (ID4) platform that uses AI, quantum physics, and high-performance cloud computing algorithms to enhance the pharmaceutical research and development process. It provides predictions on physiochemical and pharmaceutical properties of small-molecule candidates for drug design, solid-form selection, and other aspects of drug development. As of March 2024, the company developed over 200 proprietary AI models that assess crucial drug-like properties. 

The ID4 platform provides solutions for the entire drug discovery and development pipeline, with key components that tnclude, 1) XtalCryo for target confirmation, 2) XcelaHit, which assists in compound design, 3)XceptionOp, which evaluates druggability, and 4) XcelDev, which optimizes development processes.

The company’s head office is based in Boston, while its R&D center, AI research center, and an experimental center are in China. Its high-performance computing (HPC) cloud can deploy up to one million cores across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Tencent Cloud, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud.

Key customers and partnerships

The company’s customers include notable pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer (May 2018), Signet Therapeutics (October 2021), Porton Pharma Solutions (March 2020), CK Life Sciences (November 2022), Eli Lilly (May 2023), Edelweiss Connect (August 2023), Parthenon Therapeutics (September 2023), Singapore’s Experimental Drug Development Centre ( EDDC ) (November 2023), Advanced Biomedical Instrumentation Centre at HKU (November 2023), and JW C&C Research Laboratories (December 2023).

The company also partnered with ABB (December 2023) to create automated laboratory workstations in China using ABB’s GoFa cobots. 

Funding and financials

In August 2021, the company raised USD 400 million in a Series D funding round, reportedly ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO). The proceeds were earmarked for corporate expansion plans. The company has also attracted investments from Google, Tencent, and Sequoia China.