Takeda Bets Over $1 Billion on AI Partnership with Nabla Bio to Revitalize Early-Stage Pipeline

Key takeaways

Japanese pharmaceutical giant Takeda has deepened its artificial intelligence bet with Massachusetts-based biotech Nabla Bio, announcing Tuesday a multi-year research partnership that could exceed $1 billion in total payments.

The deal marks the companies' second collaboration and signals Takeda's strategic shift toward AI-driven drug discovery following its recent exit from cell therapy research.

Under the agreement, Nabla Bio will receive upfront and research cost payments in the double-digit millions, with eligibility for success-based milestone payments worth more than $1 billion. The partnership builds on an initial collaboration launched in 2022.

AI platform takes center stage in drug design

The collaboration will deploy Nabla's proprietary Joint Atomic Model (JAM) platform across Takeda's early-stage development programs, with a particular focus on designing antibodies from scratch for multiple undisclosed targets.

The companies will also work on multispecific drugs, challenging targets, and other custom biologics for hard-to-treat diseases.

Surge Biswas, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Nabla Bio, explained the platform's capabilities in an interview with Reuters. Comparing JAM to ChatGPT, Biswas said the AI system "responds to molecular queries by designing antibodies from scratch that bind targets with desired properties."

The company maintains what Biswas described as "probably the fastest feedback loop in the industry," with a turnaround of three to four weeks from design to laboratory testing.

"We are basically working on whatever the most pressing problems in Takeda's discovery portfolio are at any given time, and using JAM to help unlock and unblock those," Biswas told Reuters.

In a statement, Biswas added: "Since 2022, we've collaborated with Takeda to push the boundaries of next-generation biologics discovery.

This second collaboration builds on the success of our first program and reflects our shared conviction that de novo design and AI-driven optimization, powered by foundation models like JAM, can unlock entirely new therapeutic spaces and accelerate the development of new medicines at a scale and speed not seen before."

Chris Arendt, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research at Takeda, said: "At Takeda, we are accelerating drug development by leveraging the latest advances in AI. Building upon the success of our first engagement with Nabla Bio, this collaboration applies their cutting-edge AI and wet lab to help us design and optimize protein therapeutics for applications across our therapeutic areas."

Strategic pivot following cell therapy exit

The Nabla partnership arrives at a pivotal moment for Takeda. Just weeks earlier, the company announced it would exit all cell therapy investments as part of a sweeping strategic realignment designed to improve margins and focus on faster, more scalable drug types.

The decision resulted in 137 job losses, with Takeda seeking to offload its cell therapy platform and assets to a third-party partner.

The timing underscores the company's calculated shift toward technologies like artificial intelligence that promise to accelerate drug discovery while reducing development costs and timelines.

Earlier this month, Takeda joined a consortium with Bristol Myers Squibb to train AI models using shared pharmaceutical data.

Growing industry momentum around AI drug discovery

Takeda's expanded partnership with Nabla reflects a broader pharmaceutical industry trend toward AI-driven drug development.

Major players are increasingly forging partnerships with AI specialists in hopes of significantly reducing the lengthy timelines and billion-dollar price tags traditionally associated with bringing new medicines to market.

Nabla Bio has secured collaborations with three major pharmaceutical companies—Takeda, AstraZeneca, and Bristol Myers Squibb—with combined deal values exceeding $550 million, according to a 2024 announcement.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup launched in December 2021 with backing from Khosla Ventures and Zetta Venture Partners, and closed a $26 million Series A round led by Radical Ventures in 2024.

Other recent AI drug discovery deals include AstraZeneca's $555 million partnership with California's Algen Biotechnologies earlier this month, and Eli Lilly's $1.3 billion alliance with Superluminal Medicines in August to develop small-molecule drugs targeting obesity and cardiometabolic conditions.

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