Strasbourg, France and San Francisco,CA, September 9, 2026.. Novalix and OpenBench areproud to announce a strategic partnership that re-imagines and accelerates drugdiscovery by delivering experimentally validated chemical hit series through afee-for-success model.
OpenBench virtually screens trillions ofcompounds, identifying and synthesizing the most promising hits. Thesecandidates are passed on to Novalix where world-class in vitro screeningand characterization surface actionable, meaningful start-of-chemistry for themost challenging targets. OpenBench absorbs all early-stage financial andscientific risk, applying a success-based fee only when validated hits aredelivered.
The result is a discovery workflow thatcan deliver validated chemical hit series on novel targets in as little as sixmonths. By shifting early-stage risk entirely away from the client, companiesavoid speculative discovery spending and can direct resources towards advancinghits through Novalix's integrated, full-service drug development pipeline.Novalix’s demonstrated expertise in medicinal chemistry and pharmacology givescompanies a clear path to refine validated hits into clinic-ready assets.
"Combining OpenBench's AI-powereddiscovery platform with Novalix's experimental expertise creates a seamlesspath from computational hit identification to validated starting points.Together, we're helping clients accelerate early drug discovery while reducingthe scientific and operational challenges of validating new compounds."said Denis Zeyer, CEO, Novalix.
"OpenBench is committed to makinghigh-quality hit discovery more accessible through our fee-for-successdiscovery collaborations. Working with Novalix allows us to connect our AIdiscovery platform with strong experimental capabilities, enabling clients toadvance challenging programs with greater confidence," said James Yoder,co-founder and CEO of OpenBench.
This partnership gives life sciencecompanies a direct path to high-quality, developable chemical starting pointswithout the upfront cost and uncertainty that typically define early drugdiscovery efforts. Companies pay only when the science delivers.
About Novalix
Novalix is a premier contract researchorganization, dedicated to improving the critical early stages of drugdiscovery by combining exceptional scientific talent and exclusive technologywith a comprehensive portfolio of world-class chemistry, biophysics andpharmacology capabilities. We work collaboratively with our clients to meet themost complex scientific challenges, and our innovative partnerships withleading instrument makers and academic institutions help us continually expandthe possibilities of human health. To learn more, visit https://www.novalix.com.
About OpenBench
OpenBench is pioneering fee-for-success earlydiscovery collaborations to fuel the pipelines of the world’s most innovativetherapeutics companies. OpenBench’s structure-based artificial intelligenceplatform has designed and confirmed the most potent known chemical matter for adozen target binding sites, discovering agonists, competitive and allostericinhibitors, and potent non-functional binders for use in proximity-inducingmodalities. Our success-driven collaboration model begets scientificaccountability, R&D time and cost efficiency, and paves the way to betterpatient outcomes. To learn more, visit https://www.openbench.com.
Business enquiries:
Novalix - Felix von Haniel [email protected]
Media contacts:
Novalix - Edwina Frawley-Gangahar [email protected]
OpenBench - Michael Baksh [email protected]