Nabla Bio Signs Second Takeda Collaboration to Advance AI-Driven Design of Protein Therapeutics

Nabla Bio, making drug development designable with generative AI, led by Surge Biswas, Frances Anastassacos, Rose Harrison, and others, announced a new, multi-year research collaboration with Takeda.

Under the agreement, Nabla Bio will receive double-digit millions in upfront and research payments, with potential success-based payments exceeding $1 billion. The collaboration will deploy Nabla Bio’s Joint Atomic Model (JAM) platform across Takeda’s early-stage programs, including de novo antibody design for multiple targets, multispecifics, challenging targets, and other custom therapeutics.

Nabla Bio combines generative AI with human-relevant in vitro and in vivo testing. Its Joint Atomic Model (JAM) has achieved double-digit success rates in de novo design across diverse targets, including picomolar binders for challenging classes like GPCRs in zero-shot settings. Integrated with direct-to-function testing, JAM has produced functional antibodies, multispecifics, and receptor decoys, demonstrating strong preclinical properties such as efficacy, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and low immunogenicity in non-human primates.

Since 2022, Nabla Bio has collaborated with Takeda to advance next-generation biologics discovery. This second collaboration builds on the success of the first program and reflects a shared belief that de novo design and AI-driven optimization, powered by foundation models like JAM, can unlock new therapeutic spaces and accelerate medicine development at unprecedented scale and speed.

Takeda is accelerating drug development by leveraging advances in AI. Building on the success of the first engagement with Nabla Bio, the collaboration applies Nabla’s cutting-edge AI and wet lab capabilities to design and optimize protein therapeutics across Takeda’s therapeutic areas.