Beacon model outperforms 370+ competitors in OpenADMET-ExpansionRx blind ADMET challenge
NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Inductive Bio, an AI drug discovery partner developing virtual chemistry labs, has won the OpenADMET-ExpansionRx blind challenge with its Beacon models, placing first among more than 370 submissions in the largest industry competition to date, including from scientists at large pharma, biotech, academic, and AI organizations. The win builds on Inductive’s first-place finish in the Polaris ADMET challenge in 2025.
The OpenADMET-ExpansionRx challenge, launched in partnership with Expansion Therapeutics, tasked participants with predicting nine critical ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity) endpoints from a real-world drug discovery campaign targeting myotonic dystrophy, ALS, and dementia. The blind challenge format, in which participants predict properties of previously unseen compounds from actual drug programs, offers a rare opportunity to benchmark the current state of the art in ADMET modeling in a setting that closely mirrors real-world drug discovery conditions.
“We’re proud to place first among competitors from some of the largest companies in the space, demonstrating for a second time that Inductive’s Beacon models represent the state of the art in ADMET prediction,” said Josh Haimson, co-founder and CEO of Inductive Bio. “These results affirm the value of our small but mighty team’s experience in drug discovery and focus on building a diverse, high-quality dataset. They also show that Beacon can reliably guide programs towards development candidates, even in challenging and novel chemical space.”
Inductive’s Beacon ADMET and PK models are trained on one of the industry’s largest and most diverse ADMET datasets and engineered with proprietary fine-tuning technology that adapts global trends to novel chemical space. The models guide small molecule discovery campaigns toward compounds with improved dose, safety margins, and developability earlier in the discovery process.
Inductive currently powers the discovery programs of dozens of biopharmas and has delivered multiple development candidates in significantly shorter timelines than the industry standard. The company’s success in the OpenADMET challenge comes on the heels of news that Inductive recently received an up to $21M award from ARPA-H to lead a multi-institutional team in developing next-generation drug toxicity models to advance safer therapeutics and reduce reliance on animal testing.
About Inductive Bio
Inductive builds virtual chemistry labs that help drug hunters design higher quality molecules, faster. Inductive’s virtual labs are designed to scale proven scientific best practices across medicinal chemistry, computational chemistry, DMPK, and safety, enabling teams to make higher-quality decisions consistently throughout discovery. Inside these virtual labs, AI chemistry assistants, predictive ADMET and PK models, and human-relevant digital organ technologies work together to help scientists evaluate more hypotheses in silico and surface key risks earlier. The most promising molecules move from the virtual lab to the wet lab in a tight feedback loop that accelerates the advancement of high-quality molecules. Inductive already powers dozens of active discovery programs, including collaborations with leading biopharma partners. For more information, please visit www.inductive.bio.
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SOURCE Inductive Bio, Inc.
