Turbine, a leading virtual biology company, today announced the expansion of its collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo following the successful completion of an initial feasibility programme evaluating Turbine’s predictive modeling capabilities for ADC development. The parties will use Turbine’s virtual biology platform vLab™ to run Virtual Assays (computational experiments that simulate biological responses across large numbers of conditions) to accelerate and de-risk Daiichi Sankyo’s ADC discovery programmes. The collaboration also establishes a foundation for iterative learning, where simulated experiments guide efficient data generation, and experimental validation feeds back into ever-improving computational models. Every lab-in-the-loop cycle sharpens Virtual Assays further, creating a compounding learning effect as new experimental data strengthens the knowledge base informing subsequent predictions and decisions across ADC discovery.
The initial feasibility programme built a foundation of trust in Turbine’s predictive modelling approach, demonstrating its ability to generate meaningful insights relevant to ADC research and development. The results provided confidence to expand the collaboration, with Turbine’s vLab™ platform now being applied to Daiichi Sankyo’s proprietary ADC programs to explore complex biology and support data-driven decision-making across ADC discovery.
As ADC pipelines grow, selecting the optimal payload, combination, indication and biomarker strategies has become a significant challenge in oncology R&D, particularly as novel payload classes introduce new complexity. Traditional experimental approaches can address only a fraction of the enormous biological search space required to optimise these decisions. Turbine’s vLab™ addresses this challenge by enabling scientists to simulate experiments at computational scale, identify hypotheses supported by mechanistic evidence, and prioritise the most promising candidates for experimental validation. Turbine’s ‘lab without limits’ is an easy-to-use, no-code platform with collaborative workflows and interactive visualisations. The resulting in silico data packages can be integrated into existing R&D processes to accelerate decision-making.
“Virtual Assays offer near infinite search space and greatly reduce the number of wet lab experiments needed. We believe in silico experimentation will become the prerequisite for wet lab work and the accelerant across R&D pipelines, transforming R&D productivity,” said Szabolcs Nagy, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Turbine. “With vLab™, we’ve already worked with partners including AstraZeneca and MSD (Merck & Co.) to generate mechanistic insights and prioritise targets and biomarkers in defined patient populations. This collaboration reflects Turbine and Daiichi Sankyo’s shared commitment to applying innovation to improve decision-making across ADC discovery. We are excited to expand the collaboration into Daiichi Sankyo’s proprietary programs and combine its data and ADC expertise with Turbine’s vLab platform to accelerate the discovery of novel cancer therapies.”
