We built ASCEND, a science-first, GenAI assistant designed to unravel disease biology.

ASCEND is an evidence-based platform designed to accelerate drug discovery and complex research workflows across therapeutic areas.

ASCEND is powered by our evidence engine, built from ontologies and multi-modal AI to understand the vast history of biomedical experiments with explainability and domain expertise.

Data Foundation
Access to the most comprehensive biomedical dataset including closed access papers, patents, preprints and third party data.

Scalable Enterprise-Grade Software
Not just a model or graph, scalable enterprise-grade software solution to support workflows that have never been mapped before.

Biology-Specific Multimodal AI
Multimodal biological LLMs focused on understanding experiments from both text and figures. Powerful GenAI without hallucinations and with scientific explainability.

Internal Data Integrations
Integration of internal pharma data (ELNs, sharepoints, materials) across all TAs with enterprise-grade security and service.

Science First
Not just a technology company. Science-first solution with scientific support and onboarding. Over 100 scientists working hand-in-hand with over 100 engineers and AI experts.

Our mission is to exponentially increase the speed and quality of life saving R&D to improve the health of patients.

We do this by applying cutting-edge AI to understand how disease biology works at scale throughout the drug discovery pipeline to solve the number one reason why drug discovery projects fail — getting the biology wrong.

ASCEND, our disease biology GenAI platform, understands the entire history of biomedical experiments to create a scalable AI assistant for preclinical organizations.

Our founders Tom Leung, David Q. Chen, Elvis Wianda, and Liran Belenzon met at the U of T Creative Destruction Lab in 2015. Together they built, tested, and validated an AI solution to the antibody reproducibility crisis. This captured the attention of Google’s AI fund Gradient Ventures, who led BenchSci’s A-round and raised $10M to develop the technology and the business.