Exclusive: Lundbeck taps Cradle for antibody design

The Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck has tapped the artificial intelligence firm Cradle to help develop two antibodies to treat neurological disorders.

Scientists at Lundbeck will use Cradle’s AI software to help optimize two antibodies they had already begun to design. The software should help improve characteristics such as affinity, stability, immunogenicity, and simplicity of manufacturing, says Tarek Samad, Lundbeck’s global head of research.

Cradle’s platform is trained on protein sequences and assay data, including information about binding, thermostability, and expression—“things that people typically want when they’re trying to engineer a molecule for different types of modalities that are therapeutically relevant,” Cradle cofounder and CEO Stef van Grieken tells C&EN. Those data inform which tweaks Cradle might suggest to improve antibodies.

Talks between Cradle and Lundbeck began earlier this year. Samad’s team at Lundbeck had partnered with AI firms before, including Numerate in 2019 and Iambic Therapeutics in 2024. So using AI as part of the drug discovery and development process was not new. But Samad says he was “looking for something very particular.” Instead of a software that would design new proteins from scratch, which Lundbeck can do without a partner, Samad wanted something he could plug into his existing programs to help them along. And he also wanted something that could look at multiple parameters—an antibody’s half-life once it’s administered, how easy it is to manufacture—and optimize all of them in one go.

“What we found with Cradle is a great and flexible way to join forces,” Samad says. “They provide the AI design piece. We provide the wet biology validation piece.”

After the Lundbeck and Cradle teams consulted, scientists at the latter uploaded sequences of antibodies to the Cradle platform, specifying exactly what the Lundbeck scientists wanted to fix. From there, the Lundbeck team would create and test those antibodies in the physical lab. One project is already “actively benefiting from this,” and the second is not far behind, Samad says.

Samad and van Grieken decline to disclose the nature of the two antibodies, saying only that they are geared toward central nervous system disorders—Lundbeck’s bread and butter. The company already has several approved drugs in this space. The pair also decline to share the financial terms of the partnership. But Samad tells C&EN that it’s likely his company will use Cradle to bolster additional programs.

“These were the two low-hanging fruit,” Samad says. “Are there others on that tree? You bet. Plenty.”