Oct 14 (Reuters) - U.S. biotech firm Nabla Bio said on

Tuesday it has signed a second major research partnership with

Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical ( TAK ), deepening

their use of artificial intelligence to accelerate drug

discovery.

Under the new multi-year agreement, which builds on an

earlier collaboration launched in 2022, Nabla will receive

upfront and research cost payments in double-digit millions. The

company is also eligible for success-based payments worth more

than $1 billion.

The move underscores growing momentum across the

pharmaceutical industry to harness AI in drug development, with

hopes of significantly reducing timelines and costs in the

coming years.

Nabla said it would use its proprietary AI platform, Joint

Atomic Model (JAM), to design protein-based therapeutics for

Takeda's early-stage pipeline. The companies will focus on

hard-to-treat diseases and include multi-specific drugs and

other custom biologics.

Comparing to how ChatGPT answers text questions, Nabla CEO

Surge Biswas said JAM responds to molecular queries by designing

antibodies from scratch that bind targets with desired

properties.

The company claims to maintain "probably the fastest

feedback loop in the industry", with a turnaround of three to

four weeks from design to lab testing.

"We are basically working on whatever the most pressing

problems in Takeda's discovery portfolio is at any given time,

and using JAM to help unlock and unblock those" Biswas told

Reuters.

The latest deal comes weeks after Takeda said it would exit

cell therapy research to focus on faster and more scalable drug

types.

Earlier this month, Takeda joined a consortium, including

Bristol Myers Squibb ( BMY ), to train AI models using shared

data.

Nabla expects first-in-human data from its AI-designed

molecules within one to two years.