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Mankind Pharma Is Now Doing AI Drug Discovery — Partnership With Denovo Sciences Uses Generative Chemistry to Find Better Drug Candidates Faster

By Darshan S, Editor · 02 July,2026 · 2 min read

Summary

• Mankind Pharma and Denovo Sciences Launch AI Drug Discovery Programme Using Generative Chemistry and Human-in-the-Loop Model
• Mankind Pharma has announced a strategic AI drug discovery collaboration with Denovo Sciences, using AI-driven molecular generation, synthesis prediction, and candidate prioritisation with a human-in-the-loop model.

"Drug discovery has always been a long and uncertain journey, and that uncertainty has real consequences for patients. Our collaboration with Denovo Sciences is about using the best available technology to make this journey faster and more precise. AI gives us the ability to explore a much larger molecular space than traditional methods, while the human-in-the-loop model ensures that scientific rigour remains central to every decision. This is the kind of R&D investment we believe will shape Mankind Pharma's next chapter."

Mankind Pharma, one of India's largest pharmaceutical companies with a pan-India presence across acute and chronic therapeutic areas, has announced a strategic collaboration with Denovo Sciences Inc. — an AI-driven drug discovery company with operations across the United States, Armenia, and Qatar — to launch an AI-led drug discovery programme. The collaboration was announced on July 1, 2026, and marks what Mankind's leadership describes as the company's strongest step yet toward using AI as a core tool in the drug development process.

The collaboration brings together two distinct and complementary capabilities. Mankind Pharma contributes its R&D infrastructure — experimental validation capabilities, medicinal chemistry expertise, and clinical development experience built over decades as a domestic-focused Indian pharmaceutical company — alongside the commercial and operational infrastructure to advance drug candidates from discovery through development and regulatory submission. Denovo Sciences contributes its proprietary AI platform for drug discovery: an integrated end-to-end workflow spanning target analysis, AI-driven molecular generation, synthesis prediction, candidate prioritisation, and lead optimisation.

The Human-in-the-Loop Model

The collaboration's most structurally distinctive feature is its explicit commitment to a human-in-the-loop operational model — where AI generates and evaluates molecular candidates, but scientific experts guide, validate, and refine the process at every stage. This design choice addresses one of the most significant practical concerns about AI in drug discovery: the risk of optimising for metrics that are computationally measurable rather than for the biological and clinical properties that actually determine whether a drug candidate will work in patients.

Arjun Juneja, Chief Operating Officer of Mankind Pharma, articulated the rationale: AI gives the ability to explore a much larger molecular space than traditional methods, while the human-in-the-loop model ensures that scientific rigour remains central to every decision. The combination — AI's ability to explore vast molecular space at speed, constrained by expert scientific judgment at decision points — addresses the historic bottleneck in early drug discovery where the number of potentially interesting molecules vastly exceeds the experimental capacity to test them.

The collaboration focuses on three specific goals: reducing early drug discovery timelines by accelerating the identification of promising lead series; improving the quality of lead candidates through AI-driven optimisation of multiple properties simultaneously (efficacy, selectivity, metabolic stability, toxicity risk); and ensuring that only candidates with the strongest development potential advance to the expensive and time-consuming stages of preclinical and clinical development.

What Denovo Sciences Brings

Founded in 2022, Denovo Sciences has built an AI platform integrating computational chemistry and computational biology capabilities specifically for early-stage small-molecule discovery. Its platform combines generative chemistry (AI-generated molecular structures), modular antibody design elements, synthesis prediction (evaluating which proposed molecules can actually be synthesised in the laboratory), and lead optimisation — all integrated into a single discovery workflow rather than requiring scientists to manually connect outputs from separate AI tools.

Hovakim Zakaryan, CEO of Denovo Sciences, described the strategic fit: Mankind Pharma brings deep R&D expertise and a strong commitment to making medicines more accessible. Together, the companies are using proprietary AI technologies where they can create the greatest impact — at the earliest stage of the discovery process, where the right decisions save the most time.

Dr Anil Koul, who leads R&D innovation at Mankind Pharma, connected the collaboration to a broader ambition: AI is significantly accelerating drug discovery timelines through emerging tools in generative chemistry, modular antibody design, and process optimisation across the preclinical and clinical development value chain. Entry into AI-driven drug discovery will position Mankind as one of India's leading innovation-focused pharmaceutical companies.

The India AI Drug Discovery Context

The Mankind-Denovo collaboration arrives in a period of rapidly accelerating AI adoption across India's pharmaceutical R&D landscape. BHC Media has tracked several dimensions of this trend through 2026: the BIRAC-RDI Fund's investments in biotech companies with AI manufacturing capability (June 18 edition), the IndiaAI-ICMR MoU creating AI compute access for healthcare research (May 13 edition), and the broader AI in healthcare confidence curve that NATHEALTH and industry leaders have described as moving from pilot to operational deployment. Mankind Pharma's programme represents the first public announcement by a major Indian domestic-market-focused pharmaceutical company of an active AI drug discovery programme — a signal that AI adoption in pharma R&D is now mainstream across India's pharma sector, not just among export-oriented innovators.

"BHC Perspective"

At Bengaluru Health Community, the Mankind-Denovo AI drug discovery partnership is a pharma innovation story that validates BHC's conviction that India's pharmaceutical sector is genuinely transitioning from generics manufacturing toward drug innovation. Mankind Pharma using AI to explore larger molecular spaces with higher scientific rigour — in partnership with a global AI drug discovery platform — is precisely the kind of capability building that India's Biopharma SHAKTI mission's 100 biologics by 2047 target requires at the research level. For BHC founders in AI drug discovery, computational chemistry, or pharma R&D technology — this programme defines the commercial use case your platforms need to serve.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What has Mankind Pharma announced?
A: A strategic AI drug discovery collaboration with Denovo Sciences Inc. (US/Armenia/Qatar), using Denovo's AI platform for molecular generation, synthesis prediction, and candidate prioritisation alongside a human-in-the-loop model where scientific experts guide every stage of AI output.

Q: What is Denovo Sciences' platform?
A: An integrated AI drug discovery workflow combining target analysis, AI-driven molecular generation, synthesis prediction, candidate prioritisation, and lead optimisation — designed for early-stage small-molecule discovery to progress from target selection to optimised lead candidates with greater speed and scientific confidence.

Q: Why is the human-in-the-loop model important?
A: It ensures scientific rigour constrains AI's exploration of molecular space — AI generates and evaluates candidates across a vast molecular space that exceeds experimental capacity, but expert scientists guide, validate, and refine the process at every decision point, preventing optimisation for computationally measurable but clinically irrelevant metrics.