For the computational chemist who needs FEP campaigns running in 30 days — not after an HPC hire

CADD campaigns in your AWS — hit finding to FEP, operated end-to-end.

Your next DMTA cycle is selecting compounds on docking scores. MM-GBSA narrows it but still swaps rank order within a scaffold — enough noise to advance the wrong compound and burn $400K–1.5M finding out. FEP fixes this. The only thing standing between you and FEP-quality rankings is the cluster.

OpenFold3 → Uni-Dock → Boltz-2 → GROMACS: hit-finding funnel in 73 min at $1.16. RBFE campaigns on the same cluster. No HPC engineer, no PCS config, no quarter lost to setup.

GROMACS FEP OpenFE / RBFE Boltz-2 affinity OpenFold3 Uni-Dock · AutoDock-GPU AMBER REMD MACE-OFF BYOC — your data stays in your VPC

3 design-partner slots open · $5K pilot · $1,500/mo BYOC · FEP campaign running in 30 days or we work free

hit-discovery — EGFR ATP site, 1K-compound screen
# Structure → screen → affinity → MD. One Slurm workflow.
$ sbatch hit-discovery \
    --target   egfr_atp_site.pdb \
    --library  enamine_diverse_1000.sdf \
    --receptor 7TU3

Submitted workflow e4f1a3c2 · 4 chained steps
  [1] OpenFold3 structure     L40s spot  12m 14s  $0.31
  [2] Uni-Dock 1K-cpd screen  CPU  spot   3m 07s  $0.04
  [3] Boltz-2 affinity top-50 L40s spot  42m 11s  $0.71
  [4] GROMACS 1ns MD top-5    L40s spot  15m 22s  $0.10

$ ls results/
ranked_hits.tsv
campaign_provenance.tar.gz
   — ΔΔG estimates · per-job cost stamps · container digests · $1.16 total

The open-source CADD stack your comp chem team already cites

· · · · · · · ·
Time to a working CADD cluster

Cluster live today. First campaign in 30 days.

AWS PCS, DIY 4 – 8 weeks
HPC engineer hire + ramp 12 – 24 weeks
Clusterra today
What you get

A campaign workspace, not just a cluster.

A managed Slurm cluster in your AWS, the full CADD suite operated end-to-end, and every campaign's ΔΔG history accreting as your program's computational book-of-record.

01 / Campaign workspace

Every run builds your program's provenance record.

Perturbation networks, ΔΔG history, MBAR bundles, and per-job cost stamps accumulate in your own EFS — a cost-stamped record that lives in your account, not ours, and compounds into a system no competitor can pull out of your VPC.

02 / Full CADD suite

Hit finding to FEP — one cluster, one queue.

Structure prediction (OpenFold3), docking (Uni-Dock, AutoDock-GPU, GNINA), affinity rescoring (Boltz-2), MD (GROMACS, AMBER), and RBFE campaigns (OpenFE, FEP multidir) — the same job queue, Karpenter picks the hardware. No partition routing in your scripts.

03 / Your AWS, your IP

Structures, force fields, and ΔΔG data never leave your VPC.

Pre-IND structure data is program IP. It stays in your IAM perimeter — not on our infra, not routed through our control plane. BYOC means you see every dollar on your AWS bill, and your Savings Plans apply.

Three ways in

Console, CLI, or REST — same cluster, your call.

Submit from the web console if you'd rather not touch Slurm. SSH in and sbatch if you live in the terminal. Wire the REST API into your orchestrator if you automate everything.

01 / Web console

Campaign dashboard — submit, monitor, review.

Browse the CADD template catalog, fill the campaign form, hit submit. Live logs, per-job cost stamp, run history, ΔΔG records. For scientists who'd rather not write sbatch.

Launch the console →

02 / CLI

sbatch fep-campaign --network edges.csv

Slurm-native. SSH in and submit the way you would on any HPC system — same sbatch, squeue, sacct, scancel. For comp chemists who already live in the terminal.

CLI quickstart →

03 / REST API

POST /v1/jobs/submit

Wire Clusterra into your in-house pipeline, Airflow DAG, or Slack bot. JSON in, JSON out. For platform teams that want Clusterra as the compute backend, not the front door.

API reference →

Pick your workload

CADD first. Cryo-EM STA second. More after that.

The same managed Slurm cluster runs all three verticals. Start with the pain that's blocking you now and expand as your program grows.

/cadd

Drug discovery — hit finding, lead-opt, FEP campaigns

For the lone comp chemist at a Series A/B small-molecule biotech. OpenFold3 + Uni-Dock + Boltz-2 + GROMACS hit funnel in 73 min at $1.16. RBFE campaigns on the same cluster — no partition routing, no HPC hire.

Scope a CADD pilot →

/cryo-et

Cryo-electron tomography — RELION-5 STA, AreTomo, IsoNet

For structural-biology biotechs running RELION-5 / AreTomo / Warp·M / IsoNet / MemBrain pipelines. Multi-TB tilt-series stay in your VPC. CryoCloud covers SPA — we cover STA. No academic-cluster waitlist.

Open cryo-ET page →

/your-workflow

Something else — genomics, proteomics, custom pipelines

If you're running nf-core/sarek, AlphaDIA cohorts, MAPPs, single-cell, or a custom Slurm pipeline — the platform substrate is the same. New workloads onboard in days. Send us what you're running.

Email us →

Campaign provenance

Every run ships with an auditable receipt.

Not a log file. A tarball any reviewer can rerun end-to-end — with ΔΔG history, MBAR bundles, and per-job cost stamps accreting in your own EFS.

tar -tf campaign_provenance.tar.gz
campaign_provenance.tar.gz
├── manifest.json          # run metadata + hashes
├── perturbation_network.json # Lomap edge list
├── ddg_estimates.csv      # per-edge ΔΔG + MBAR
├── slurm.sbatch           # exact submit script
├── container.sha256       # image digest
├── input/
│   └── ligands.sdf / protein.pdb
├── output/
│   └── ranked_hits.tsv / ddg.csv
├── cost.json              # per-job AWS cost stamp
└── provenance.log         # signed, append-only
manifest.json
{
  "run_id":        "clst-21047",
  "git_sha":       "a3f9e21",
  "workflow":      "fep-campaign@0.3.0",
  "container":     "sha256:4c8a…d9f2",
  "submitted_at":  "2026-06-01T09:14:22Z",
  "edges":         24,
  "wall_clock_s":  18420,
  "cost_usd":      11.40,
  "nodes":         "g5.12xlarge × 1",
  "protocol_hash": "b91c…d47e",
  "signed_by":     "clusterra-prod"
}

Finance can expense it. A new scientist joining next year can clusterra rerun a 2026 campaign and get the same ΔΔG estimates. The SAR history your program accumulates becomes the switching cost that makes the cluster worth keeping.

Benchmarks

Full-pipeline cost on the CADD workloads you actually run.

Spot pricing, checkpoint-restart on, us-east-1. Reproducible benchmarks on public datasets — fork the repo, verify the numbers.

Workload
Cost
Reference
Hit-discovery funnel — structure → screen → affinity → MD
OpenFold3 + Uni-Dock 1K-cpd + Boltz-2 top-50 rescore + GROMACS 1ns MD · L40s spot
$1.16 73 min, 1,000 compounds screened
EGFR ATP site (7TU3) · Enamine Diverse 1K · OpenFold3 TM 0.984 vs crystal · per-job cost-stamped
Boltz-2 affinity rescoring
TCR-pMHC 5-chain co-fold · A10G GPU spot
$0.13 per complex
DockQ 0.59 reference set · post-cutoff DockQ 0.62 vs published crystals
GROMACS FEP multidir — 24-edge RBFE campaign
OpenFE edges · g5.12xlarge spot · alchemlyb MBAR analysis
benchmark in progress
CDK2 public benchmark · full wall-time + cost numbers shipping with design-partner pilot. Ask for the draft numbers on a call.
AlphaDIA proteomics cohort
timsTOF Ultra 2 · HeLa 200ng · Mann lab library
$0.05 per sample, 13 min wall-clock
8,591 proteins, 105,414 precursors · 50-sample cohort runs in parallel, not serial
Sarek + Parabricks 30× WGS
Parabricks GPU alignment + DeepVariant · g5 spot
$2.59 per sample, 2h 32m
GIAB NA12878 · SNP F1=0.9966 / INDEL F1=0.9934 against hap.py truth set
Worked example / $1.16 total, verified Hit-discovery funnel · EGFR · 1,000 compounds · L40s spot
OpenFold3 structure prep · L40s spot · 12m 14s$0.31
Uni-Dock 1K-cpd screen · CPU spot · 3m 07s$0.04
Boltz-2 affinity top-50 · L40s spot · 42m 11s$0.71
GROMACS 1ns MD top-5 · L40s spot · 15m 22s$0.10
Total / campaign$1.16

Verified run, May 2026. EGFR ATP site (7TU3), Enamine Diverse 1K library. Every dollar lands on your AWS bill, not ours — you see the itemized CloudWatch cost per step.

Read the full benchmark methodology →

Where we fit

Operated BYOC for CADD — the gap nobody else occupies.

Every named competitor has a hard constraint that excludes them from the lone CADD scientist at a Series A/B biotech. Here is the honest map.

Capability Clusterra Rowan Schrödinger BioTeam AWS PCS
Full CADD suite: hit-find → FEP — operated end-to-end hit-find + docking, no BYOC FEP FEP+ only with Maestro license consulting, not SaaS substrate — you build it
Open tools (GROMACS / OpenFE — no proprietary force fields) proprietary TMD engine OPLS3e, Maestro
BYOC — compute and data in customer’s own AWS VPC tier is bespoke enterprise virtual cluster, enterprise contract
Flat price (no per-seat, no compute markup) $1,500/mo $200 solo / $50K org / $25 per-cpd ~$100K+ / year project billing per-hr mgmt fee
One queue — any job gets the right hardware, no partition routing 10-partition cap, no cross-family
Campaign system-of-record (ΔΔG + cost history in your EFS) results on Rowan infra Maestro project files

Rowan wins where the browser UX matters and budget is tight at the per-seat level — it’s a great product for early exploration. Schrödinger wins where the Maestro + OPLS3e stack is already licensed. BioTeam wins where you need custom consulting. AWS PCS is the substrate we’re built on. Clusterra wins when you want the open-source CADD suite operated in your own AWS account at a flat price a Series A biotech can actually afford.

How it works

FEP campaign running in 30 days.

Three steps. All in your AWS account.

01 / Connect

Connect your AWS account — about 10 minutes

BYOC via a cross-account IAM role. Your VPC, your billing, your data. We deploy the Slurm + Karpenter control plane into your account — nothing routes through ours.

02 / Pick a campaign

Pick a CADD template or bring your workflow

Hit-discovery funnel, RBFE campaign, GROMACS FEP multidir, AMBER REMD, OpenFold3 batch — or submit your own Slurm job. The cluster knows what hardware each step needs; you never write a partition name.

03 / Submit

Submit — results + provenance back in your EFS

sbatch, REST, or the console. Karpenter provisions the right instance family on Spot. Checkpoint-restart on eviction. Live cost meter. Per-job cost stamp. Campaign provenance bundle on every run.

Pricing

The 30-Day FEP Launchpad — three design-partner slots open.

A scoped 30-day pilot to get your first RBFE campaign running in your AWS account. Then a flat monthly fee — your VPC, your compute, your AWS bill.

3 design-partner slots open — closes when filled
30-Day FEP Launchpad
$5Kpilot  →  $1,500/mo BYOC

Pilot covers: cluster deployment in your VPC, a CDK2 smoke campaign that proves the GROMACS FEP stack is running correctly in your account before your compound IP goes in, and 30 days of infra support. You bring the chemistry. We make the cluster work. After the pilot, flat $1,500/month — compute runs in your AWS account, not ours. No per-seat fee, no compute markup.

  • Structures, force fields, ΔΔG history, and SAR data never leave your VPC
  • Full CADD suite: OpenFold3, Uni-Dock, Boltz-2, GROMACS FEP, OpenFE, AMBER, MACE-OFF
  • One queue — Karpenter picks CPU, GPU, or multi-GPU automatically. No partition routing in your scripts.
  • Campaign provenance bundle on every run — perturbation network, ΔΔG, MBAR, per-job cost stamp
  • Uses your Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, and AWS credits. No compute markup.
  • Direct Slack access to the founder throughout the pilot
Book the 30-day FEP Launchpad →

Guarantee: if the GROMACS FEP stack isn’t validated end-to-end in your account within 30 days, we work for free until it is. If you’re still not satisfied at 60 days, the pilot fee is refunded in full.

Alternative
Annual cost
Tradeoff
Schrödinger FEP+
$100K–1.5M/ year
Requires existing Maestro license estate. Proprietary force fields. Not BYOC.
Rowan
$50K/ year self-serve  ·  $25 / ligand managed
Compound structures go to Rowan’s infrastructure. No BYOC at flat price. 33× Clusterra’s annual cost.
CRO outsourcing (Cresset, Schrödinger services)
$25K–100Kper engagement
Weeks turnaround. Structures leave your building. One engagement, not continuous.
DIY GROMACS on AWS
4–8 weeksof your time
MPI config, EFA networking, spot recovery, lambda orchestration — before your first campaign runs.
Clusterra (design partner)
$1,500/ month + AWS compute
$5K pilot → $18K / year. BYOC. Open tools. Cluster validated and running the day you scope it.
Not the right fit if → you already have Schrödinger FEP+ licensed and it’s working well · you run OpenMM / Alchemiscale and are happy managing the DIY setup yourself · your team already has an HPC engineer managing ParallelCluster or PCS · you need GxP validation or SOC 2 Type II compliance in month one

Production pricing (customer #4 onward): $8K pilot → $2,500/mo. Design-partner rate is open now for the first three accounts.

$ sbatch fep-campaign --network edges.csv --target your_protein.pdb # Your AWS. Your data. Your ΔΔG history. 30-day pilot.

Scope a pilot on your target class.

30 minutes to scope. 30-day pilot with your first RBFE campaign running in your AWS account. FEP Launchpad: $5K pilot, $1,500/mo BYOC. Three design-partner slots — closes when filled.

Or join the community Slack →