Under the deal, AI Proteins is set to receive an upfront cash sum of more than $400m to design and optimise de novo miniproteins directed at targets selected by Astellas.
AI Proteins also qualifies for milestone payments and royalties on net sales generated by resulting therapies.
AI Proteins president, CEO and founder Chris Bahl said: “Every biologic medicine on the market today is based on a molecule borrowed from nature that evolved to do something else.
“Designing miniproteins de novo lets us work from the other direction, meaning we specify what a medicine needs to do, then build a molecule from scratch to do precisely that.
“It’s a shift from repurposing to design, and it puts problems within reach that traditional biologics can’t solve. Astellas has deep expertise in translating innovative science into medicines, and they’re the right partner to carry this forward to patients.”
Astellas holds an exclusive global licence to therapeutic candidates produced through the partnership. The company will oversee all subsequent development, regulatory processes, and commercialisation.
AI Proteins will deploy its computational discovery platform to design proteins targeting multiple pathways to generate the candidates.
Astellas Innovation Lab senior vice-president Morten Sogaard said: “Our collaboration with AI Proteins reflects our strategic focus on strengthening our early-stage research pipeline through partnerships that provide access to novel biology, differentiated technologies and new therapeutic possibilities.
“By combining AI Proteins’ advanced de novo protein design capabilities with Astellas’ expertise in translating scientific breakthroughs into innovative medicines, we aim to accelerate the discovery of high-quality therapeutic candidates that can help fuel long-term innovation and support our pipeline-led growth strategy.”