Explore broadly, and go deep where the evidence points.
Urchin is a scientific reasoning system built to find what conventional approaches miss. It systematically explores indications, biological hypotheses, mechanisms, targets, assets and therapeutic strategies before narrowing to the most promising paths, and it hands your team reasoning it can check claim by claim.
Three things a scientific reasoning system has to do at once
Explore broadly without sacrificing depth
Traditional research forces a tradeoff: investigate a few opportunities deeply, or screen many superficially. Human experts provide scientific depth but can only explore a limited portion of the search space, and generative AI tools provide broad synthesis but limited depth, often converging on a small set of plausible answers.
Urchin combines scientific depth with systematic, machine-scale exploration. For each question it designs a research pipeline and deploys agents that search, integrate and reason over the evidence, so hundreds of possibilities get structured scientific scrutiny and the search goes deeper wherever the evidence points.
Bring the whole evidence landscape into one reasoning process
No single evidence source contains the answer. Urchin reasons across scientific, clinical, competitive, and internal evidence, revealing connections that are easy to miss when each source is considered in isolation.
Scientific evidence means publications, human genetics and biological databases. Clinical evidence means trials, translational data, biomarkers and endpoints. Competitive evidence covers pipeline activity, patents and therapeutic precedent. Internal evidence is your own experimental data, internal research and team expertise, sitting in the same reasoning process as everything public.
Structured, inspectable reasoning traces
Urchin creates structured, inspectable reasoning traces your team can review, challenge, and extend. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, every conclusion stays connected to its supporting evidence, keeping scientific judgment in your team's hands.
Information is not the same thing as insight, and having an insight is not the same as getting to conviction. The trace is what a team inspects to move from one to the next.
Inspectable, citable, and still there next quarter.
A trace is the structure underneath an Urchin answer: the evidence gathered, the reasoning that connected it, and the citation behind every claim. It is built to be reviewed, challenged and extended.
- i The reasoning is structured rather than narrated, so a scientist can follow the path from evidence to conclusion instead of taking the conclusion on trust.
- ii Every conclusion stays connected to its supporting evidence, which is what lets your team weigh one opportunity against another before committing resources.
- iii Every question builds on the last, with scientific reasoning that compounds instead of resetting. Teams build on and extend Urchin's persistent reasoning as new evidence emerges and programs evolve, preserving scientific context across decisions.
Hover a hypothesis or a nomination to light its path back to the sources
Illustrative trace, shaped on the SharkTooth Bio engagement.
Wherever the opportunity space is large, the evidence is scattered, and the stakes are high, Urchin can help.
Urchin applies the same reasoning framework across a wide range of scientific and strategic decisions.
Indication selection
Where does this approach have the strongest therapeutic potential? Urchin explores the therapeutic opportunity landscape for a platform or modality breadth-first, combining biological reasoning with translational and competitive considerations. Read the gene editing study
Biological strategy
Which mechanisms or hypotheses are most worth pursuing? Urchin explores the space of mechanistic possibilities anchored on experimental clues, and returns each hypothesis with a rationale and suggested experiments. Read the Vrata Therapeutics study
Translational strategy
What experiments would most reduce uncertainty around this program? Urchin connects model parameterization, species selection, regulatory precedent and clinical design into a framework the program can defend. Read the Absco Therapeutics study or the translational strategy study
Asset strategy
Where else could this asset create therapeutic value? Urchin integrates proprietary experimental data with human genetics, pathway biology, pharmacology and therapeutic precedent to nominate compounds and drug classes with mechanistic rationale. Read the SharkTooth Bio study
Portfolio strategy
Which opportunities deserve additional investment? Urchin connects where biological value comes from to partner demand, market comparables and the operational implications of each path. Read the Probably Genetic study
How a first engagement runs
A typical first engagement takes 2 to 4 weeks and starts with a single, high-value question.
Your scientists bring the context and judgment. We use Urchin to systematically explore the space around the question, integrating public evidence with your team's data and expertise.
Together, we iteratively refine the search, interrogate promising hypotheses, and narrow toward the opportunities worth acting on.
You walk away with a clearly defined strategic question scoped collaboratively with your team, and a systematic map of the opportunity space with prioritized opportunities delivered through an interactive workspace. Every conclusion in it links back to its supporting evidence, and the work closes with recommended next steps to validate the most promising opportunities.