Helical

Helical is a Virtual AI Lab for Biology — an open-core platform that brings the full power of DNA and mRNA bio foundation models together in a single, unified environment. Designed for both machine learning engineers and biologists, Helical bridges the gap between raw AI model predictions and actionable research decisions, enabling R&D teams to move from hypothesis to insight at the speed of inference.

Large pharma R&D teams deploy Helical across target identification, biomarker discovery, and therapeutic design, with active use across Cardiometabolic, Neurology, Immunology, and Oncology disease areas. Teams using Helical report up to 3–5× higher hit rates versus traditional approaches, with performance compounding as more experiments are run.

Core Platform Components

• The Virtual Lab: Gives biologists self-serve access to design experiments and evaluate biological outcomes without writing code, enabling non-technical researchers to leverage advanced AI models directly.
• The Model Factory: Provides ML engineers a production environment for model personalization and alignment, featuring native VS Code integration, compute resources, and experiment tracking.

Key Application Areas

• Target Identification: Discover, validate, and prioritize novel therapeutic targets — identifying druggable molecular, cellular, and genetic targets with the highest potential for transforming disease outcomes.
• Biomarker Discovery: Identify and discover molecular indicators that predict disease progression, treatment response, and patient outcomes using bio-foundation models within Helical's advanced workflows.
• mRNA Sequence Design: Design and optimize synthetic mRNA constructs for mRNA therapeutics, enhancing stability, translation efficiency, and therapeutic potential across diverse applications.
• Patient Stratification: Categorize patients into distinct subgroups based on clinical, molecular, or genetic characteristics to improve therapeutic outcomes and optimize clinical trial design.
• Gene Therapy Design: Optimize gene therapy constructs through advanced foundation models, refining sequence design to meet specific therapeutic goals and desired properties.
• ASO and Therapeutic Sequence Design: Design antisense oligonucleotides and other therapeutic sequences grounded in biological data.

Platform Capabilities

• Personalizes bio foundation models to specific diseases and research contexts.
• Runs in-silico experiments at scale, accelerating the hypothesis-testing cycle.
• Validates every result against real biological evidence to ensure scientific rigor.
• Supports custom use case development, allowing teams to build and optimize their own workflows with bio foundation models at their core.

Helical is built by a Europe-based team and is available for discovery teams looking to accelerate drug discovery with AI. The platform supports community engagement through a dedicated Slack community for discussions on the latest bio foundation models, and offers developer-focused resources for deeper integration and customization.