Montréal, November 12, 2025 - BenchSci, a leading provider of AI software for biopharma research and development, and Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, one of the world’s premier AI research centers, today announced a multi-year partnership to advance the use of artificial intelligence for biological inference.
As part of this partnership, BenchSci and Mila will launch a new collaboration dedicated to advancing biological inference. The collaboration will unite BenchSci’s deep expertise in biological data with Mila’s world-class research in artificial intelligence to push the boundaries of predictive and generative modelling in drug discovery. Together, the teams aim to develop models capable of automating the creation of novel scientific hypotheses and experimental assay prediction—a major step toward the vision of autonomous drug discovery.
“This partnership exemplifies a core component of Mila’s mission, that is, to push the boundaries of what artificial intelligence can achieve for science,” said Stéphane Létourneau, Executive Vice President at Mila. “By joining forces with BenchSci, we’re applying world-class AI research to one of the most complex and impactful challenges of our time—understanding biology at a level that can transform how life-saving medicines are discovered and developed.”
“Our partnership with Mila marks a major step toward realizing the vision of autonomous drug discovery. Together, we’re combining frontier AI research with deep biological understanding to build systems capable of biological inference—AI that can reason across complex data to generate and validate scientific hypotheses at scale,” says Liran Belenzon, CEO and Co-Founder, BenchSci. “This is a fundamental shift for drug discovery, laying the groundwork for autonomous labs that accelerate innovation, uncover insights beyond human reach, and bring life-saving medicines to patients faster."
As part of this partnership, BenchSci will gain access to Mila’s network of world-class experts, who will work closely with BenchSci’s internal team of machine learning scientists. Their research will directly contribute to the evolution of BenchSci’s ASCEND platform by advancing new inference models that build on the company’s Biological Evidence Knowledge Graph (BEKG)—the world’s most advanced map of disease biology. This close collaboration will foster continuous knowledge sharing and accelerate the integration of cutting-edge AI research into ASCEND’s core capabilities.
About BenchSci
BenchSci is a world leader in AI software for biopharma research and development on a mission to exponentially increase the speed and quality of life-saving R&D to help bring new medicines to patients faster. We apply AI to understand how disease biology works throughout the drug discovery pipeline to solve the number one reason drug discovery projects fail—getting the biology wrong. Our platform, ASCEND, acts as a scalable AI assistant for preclinical organizations, increasing the productivity of the preclinical R&D pipeline across therapeutic areas. Backed by top-tier investors, including Generation Investment Management, iNovia Capital, TCV, F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), and Golden Ventures, BenchSci has raised over $200 million. Our platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. For more information about BenchSci, visit www.benchsci.com.
About Mila
Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal, Mila is the world’s largest academic research center for deep learning, bringing together over 1,500 specialized researchers in machine learning. Based in Montreal and funded in part by the Government of Canada through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, Mila's mission is to be a global center for scientific advancements that inspire innovation and the growth of AI for the benefit of all. Mila is a globally recognized non-profit organization for its significant contributions to deep learning, especially in the fields of language modelling, automatic translation, object recognition, and generative models. For more information, visit mila.quebec.
Media Contact Information:
BenchSci
Christina Peck
Phone: 416-371-6292
Email:cpeck@benchsci.com
Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute
Email: medias@mila.quebec
