Collaboration adds Cradle’s end-to-end platform to UCB’s computational capabilities, supporting faster discovery of complex therapies for severe diseases
, /PRNewswire/ — UCB, a global biopharmaceutical company, and Cradle, which builds a leading AI-driven protein design and engineering platform, today announced a strategic collaboration. The collaboration is the latest step in UCB’s expanding digital antibody discovery and engineering program, which draws on the company’s own successful antibody discovery platform combined with computational science, deep expertise in disease biology and a network of technology and research partners.
Under the collaboration, UCB will apply Cradle’s platform within selected discovery projects from hit generation through lead optimization and preclinical readiness. The collaboration reflects UCB’s mission of translating cutting-edge science into meaningful advances for patients. By fully integrating AI across the discovery process and strengthening its digital antibody engineering capabilities, UCB aims to accelerate the ability to identify and optimize high-quality candidates for diseases where patients continue to need better options.
“At UCB, we view AI not as something to chase for its own sake, but as a scientific force multiplier that augments human expertise across biology, chemistry, and translational research. We are excited to partner with Cradle as we expand our digital antibody engineering capabilities,” said Alistair Henry, Chief Scientific Officer of UCB. “Adding Cradle’s end-to-end platform across our discovery pipeline allows us to apply computational approaches in a deeply rigorous and translational way. Predictive modeling combined with wet-lab validation allows us to potentially design better molecules, learn faster, and bring high-quality therapeutics to patients even sooner.”
As UCB scientists use the Cradle platform across programs, experimental results continuously feed back into program-specific models. This creates a compounding learning loop or “lab-in-the-loop” that supports scientists in applying their expertise and judgement to optimize candidates across the full set of properties required for success and accelerate progression toward a potential candidate.
“AI will have its greatest impact on biologics R&D when it can be scaled beyond individual experiments or programs and become part of how scientists work across the discovery organization,” said Stef van Grieken, CEO and Co-Founder of Cradle. “Partnering with UCB brings Cradle across its biotherapeutics pipeline, giving scientists a common platform to apply AI to more programs, more modalities and more complex engineering challenges and ultimately advance better therapies.”
About UCB
UCB, Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com) is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines and solutions to transform the lives of people living with severe diseases of the immune system or of the central nervous system. With more than 9000 people in approximately 40 countries, the company generated revenue of €7.7 billion in 2025. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (symbol: UCB).
About Cradle
Cradle’s mission is to enable every scientist to turn today’s impossible cures, foods, and materials into tomorrow’s ordinary. Cradle’s end-to-end protein engineering platform helps scientists intentionally engineer biologics across the full design-to-candidate lifecycle, bringing AI-driven molecular engineering, active learning from experimental data, and multi-property optimization together in a single system. Today, the platform is trusted by many of the biggest names in global pharmaceutical, industrial bio, agriculture and consumer goods across more than 80 active R&D programs. Cradle is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Zürich, Switzerland and the United States with a team of machine learning and biotech research experts with deep industry experience from many of the world’s leading technology and biotech companies. Cradle is backed by IVP as well as Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. For more information, visit cradle.bio.
Forward-looking statements
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Important factors that could result in such differences include but are not limited to: global spread and impacts of wars, pandemics and terrorism, the general geopolitical environment, climate change, changes in general economic, business and competitive conditions, the inability to obtain necessary regulatory approvals or to obtain them on acceptable terms or within expected timing, costs associated with research and development, changes in the prospects for products in the pipeline or under development by UCB, effects of future judicial decisions or governmental investigations, safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues, supply chain disruption and business continuity risks; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, product liability claims, challenges to patent protection for products or product candidates, competition from other products including biosimilars or disruptive technologies/business models, changes in laws or regulations, exchange rate fluctuations, changes or uncertainties in tax laws or the administration of such laws, and hiring, retention and compliance of its employees. There is no guarantee that new product candidates will be discovered or identified in the pipeline, or that new indications for existing products will be developed and approved. Movement from concept to commercial product is uncertain; preclinical results do not guarantee safety and efficacy of product candidates in humans. So far, the complexity of the human body cannot be reproduced in computer models, cell culture systems or animal models. The length of the timing to complete clinical trials and to get regulatory approval for product marketing has varied in the past and UCB expects similar unpredictability going forward. Products or potential products which are the subject of partnerships, joint ventures or licensing collaborations may be subject to disputes between the partners or may prove to be not as safe, effective or commercially successful as UCB may have believed at the start of such partnership. UCB’s efforts to acquire other products or companies and to integrate the operations of such acquired companies may not be as successful as UCB may have believed at the moment of acquisition. Also, UCB or others could discover safety, side effects or manufacturing problems with its products and/or devices after they are marketed. The discovery of significant problems with a product similar to one of UCB’s products that implicate an entire class of products may have a material adverse effect on sales of the entire class of affected products. Moreover, sales may be impacted by international and domestic trends toward managed care and health care cost containment, including pricing pressure, political and public scrutiny, customer and prescriber patterns or practices, and the reimbursement policies imposed by third-party payers as well as legislation affecting biopharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement activities and outcomes. Finally, a breakdown, cyberattack or information security breach could compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of UCB’s data and systems.
Given these uncertainties, the public is cautioned not to place any undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this document, and do not reflect any potential impacts from the evolving event or risk as mentioned above as well as any other adversity, unless indicated otherwise. The company continues to follow the development diligently to assess the financial significance of these events, as the case may be, to UCB.
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SOURCE Cradle; UCB
