OpenEye

OpenEye Scientific, now operating as a business unit of Cadence (Nasdaq: CDNS) under the name Cadence Molecular Sciences, is a molecular modeling and cheminformatics software company founded in 1997 and headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with additional offices in Boston, Cologne (Germany), and Tokyo (Japan). With more than 25 years of experience and a team of over 140 employees, OpenEye serves leading pharmaceutical businesses, scientists, and academic institutions worldwide, providing cloud-native computational tools designed to accelerate lead discovery and optimization in drug development.

At the core of OpenEye's offering is the Orion® Molecular Design Platform, described as the industry's only cloud-native solution for molecular design. The platform is purpose-built to improve speed, scientific robustness, and scalable application throughout the entire drug discovery process — from early target exploration through hit identification, hit-to-lead progression, and lead optimization. Eurofins Beacon Discovery's Vice President of Computational Science has publicly praised the Orion Platform for delivering outstanding results in small molecule virtual screening.

Core Scientific Capabilities

• Physics-based molecular design supporting biomolecular target exploration, hit identification, hit-to-lead, and lead optimization workflows
• Free energy predictions for binding affinity estimation
• Pharmaceutical formulation modeling
• Ligand-based and structure-based virtual screening
• Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, including long timescale MD on large systems
• Affinity predictions and quantum chemistry calculations
• Design and screening of antibody libraries using next-generation sequencing (NGS)

Speed and Scale

• 2D similarity search across billions of ligands completed in seconds
• 3D similarity search across billions of ligands completed in minutes
• Docking of billions of ligands completed in hours
• Access to more than 24 billion 3D conformer-expanded compounds from commercial vendors
• More than 2.2 million searchable protein binding sites
• More than 100,000 docking- and MD-ready protein structures
• Capability to screen ultra-large scale compound databases
• Rigorous theory combined with efficient algorithms to maximize scientific impact

Notable Products and Recent Innovations

• ROCS X — An AI-enabled virtual screening solution launched in 2025 that enables scientists to conduct 3D searches of trillions of drug-like molecules, announced at miniCUP Boston
• Target X — A solution focused on enabling researchers to fully characterize and work with their own molecular targets
• A druggable site identification tool reported to reveal druggable sites with over 90% accuracy
• Free energy prediction capabilities enabling rapid binding affinity assessments to support structure-based drug design

Community and Engagement

• Regular miniWEBINAR series featuring expert-led sessions on topics such as free energy prediction for drug discovery and molecular binding affinity methods
• Annual miniCUP user community events held in locations including Boston and Basel
• Scientific Advisory Board supporting ongoing research and development direction
• Active engagement with both industry and academic communities globally

OpenEye Scientific combines decades of domain expertise with a forward-looking, cloud-native technology approach to deliver transformational molecular design capabilities. As part of Cadence, the company continues to expand the boundaries of computational drug discovery, offering scientists the science, speed, and scale needed to bring new therapies to patients faster.