Inductive Bio Tops 270-Plus Entrants in OpenADMET CYP Inhibition Challenge

Inductive Bio placed first in the OpenADMET CYP Direct Inhibition Blind Challenge, ranking ahead of more than 270 participants, the company said in a PR Newswire announcement on November 6, 2026. The result is its fourth consecutive first-place finish in OpenADMET's blind ADMET prediction competitions.

Inductive's Fourth Straight OpenADMET Win

Inductive Bio is a chemical intelligence company that builds AI models and lab tools for small-molecule drug discovery. In the challenge, participants predicted inhibition potency, or pIC50, against four major CYP isoforms (CYP3A4, CYP2D6, CYP2C9 and CYP1A2) for 750 compounds whose measurements were withheld until the challenge closed. The Direct Inhibition track drew over 270 eligible participants, and Inductive placed first in a field that included NVIDIA in third and Recursion in fourth.

CYP enzymes metabolize most small-molecule drugs, and compounds that inhibit them can cause dangerous drug-drug interactions. Inductive's Beacon models are powered by its pre-competitive data consortium, which the company describes as one of the industry's largest centralized ADMET datasets, and are fine-tuned to each partner's chemical space. Across the four challenges, the company said its models have been tested on 19 drug discovery endpoints and outperformed more than 1,000 competitors.

"For AI in chemistry to match the progress we've seen in coding and math, data is the bottleneck," said Ben Birnbaum, Inductive's Co-Founder and CTO. "Chemistry data is hard to come by because it comes from real experiments that are expensive and require weeks to months of expert work in chemistry labs."

Inductive's Funding and Federal Award Record

According to akta.pro company records, Inductive raised a $4.3 million seed round in December 2023, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health and Lux Capital, and a $25 million Series A in May 2025 led by Obvious Ventures. The records list total funding of $29.3 million at the Series A stage. In December 2025, Inductive received an award of up to $21 million under the ARPA-H CATALYST program to lead the DATAMAP project developing AI drug-toxicity models with Amgen, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine and Torch Bio.

Indy and Beacon-2 Launches Before the Win

Inductive launched Indy, an AI chemistry assistant available to partners, in September 2026, PR Newswire reported. In head-to-head benchmarks, Indy achieved 89% accuracy on dose-response curves, outperforming Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol. Later that month, the company launched Beacon-2, a system that predicts the efficacious human dose of small molecules from their chemical structure; PR Newswire reported that its ADMET models had won three consecutive OpenADMET blind challenges, beating over 750 competitors. In July 2026, Inductive placed first in OpenADMET's PXR Blind Challenge, beating over 350 competitors, according to PR Newswire.

What Comes Next for Inductive

Inductive said its models support discovery programs with leading biopharma partners. The company's website lists its Beacon models, lab robotics and expert chemists as the basis of its chemical intelligence platform.