Takeda signs $1.7bn AI alliance with Iambic

Takeda has joined forces with Iambic Therapeutics on a multiyear collaboration to use the US biotech's AI-driven, structure-based drug discovery platform to find new therapies for gastrointestinal and inflammatory diseases, as well as cancer.

The deal – worth up to $1.7 billion – will give Takeda access to Iambic's NeuralPLexer, an AI model designed to predict the 3D structure of protein-ligand complexes at the atomic level, which the Japanese pharma group said would allow it to "more broadly accelerate…drug discovery and development efforts." Specific details of the projects are not yet available.

Takeda's chief scientific officer, Chris Arendt, said using the platform will help it to come up with new small-molecule therapeutics with the potential to "de-risk candidate selection, improve probability of success, and more quickly advance select programmes from early project start to [clinical testing]."

The big pharma joins a small but growing list of customers for Iambic's platform, which has also attracted Revolution Medicines, working with the biotech on oncology therapies, and a neurology-focused project with Lundbeck.

The Takeda deal, which is believed to be the largest signed to date by the San Diego and Cambridge-based startup, includes upfront, research cost, and technology access fees, as well as milestone payments. Along with access to NeuralPLexer, the collaboration will also make use of Iambic's high-throughput, automated wet lab capacity.

It follows a series of other alliances by the Japanese group intended to bolster its AI capabilities, coming after it signed two agreements with Nabla Bio – the latest worth more than $1 billion last year – along with earlier partnerships involving Arzeda, nference, and CytoReason.

Last October, it also joined the AI Structural Biology (AISB) consortium, which is working on refining the OpenFold structure prediction platform with the help of pharma industry data.

Last November, Iambic raised more than $100 million in an unlabelled financing round that will be used for the development of its lead in-house candidate IAM1363, described as a highly selective, brain-penetrating HER2 inhibitor, which is in early-stage clinical testing with initial data across various solid tumour types reported at last year's ESMO congress.

It also plans to use the funds move two other oncology programmes, targeting KIF18A and CDK2/4, into clinical testing.