WR Grace & Co, a Standard Industries company and a global leader in specialty chemicals, has entered a strategic, multi-year agreement with Molecule.one, a pioneer in chemical AI and high-throughput chemistry, to reinvent how critical chemical compounds are manufactured at scale.
The collaboration targets one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most pressing challenges: producing peptide building blocks efficiently and reliably. In its first phase, Grace and Molecule.one will advance the synthesis of select peptide components using Molecule.one’s MARIA AI and high-throughput experimentation platform. These building blocks are essential to modern therapeutics, including fast-growing GLP-1 treatments for weight loss and diabetes.
Demand is surging. With metabolic-disease peptides driving growth, the global peptide market is projected to more than double by 2030, topping $100 billion. Yet supply chain constraints and difficult-to-scale chemistry threaten to slow innovation—creating an urgent need for new manufacturing approaches.
“Combining Grace’s deep expertise in fine chemicals with Molecule.one’s award-winning AI and automation platform will allow us to transform the way we scale and manufacture pharmaceuticals while strengthening our capabilities at our US Fine Chemicals Manufacturing sites,” said Brenda Kelly, President, Materials Technologies, Grace.
“The first phase of this collaboration will accelerate how complex peptide building blocks are produced, reducing development timelines and helping drug manufacturers bring innovative treatments to patients faster.”
The partnership builds on Molecule.one’s win in the Standard Industries Chemical Innovation Challenge, a global competition aimed at accelerating AI-driven advances in chemical retrosynthesis.
"Following Grace’s successful validation of our technology, we sat down to discuss strategic priorities. We quickly identified significant synergies, which made the collaboration natural,” said Piotr Byrski, co-founder and CEO of Molecule.one.
“Working closely with Grace scientists, the MARIA platform will not only optimize processes, but help discover completely novel, scalable ways to make molecules – starting with complex peptide building blocks. This collaboration represents the first deployment of an AI-driven discovery and synthesis platform designed to enable large-scale chemical manufacturing—from initial scaling through full production.”
Powered by AI analysis and thousands of autonomously executed, miniaturized reactions, the MARIA platform will enable Grace to rapidly identify and prioritize more efficient production routes.
By pairing computational intelligence with high-throughput experimentation, the companies aim to cut development time, improve reproducibility, and deliver scalable solutions that outperform conventional peptide synthesis methods—giving pharmaceutical manufacturers a decisive edge in a fast-moving market.
