Turbine and Daiichi Sankyo have expanded their collaboration to use virtual biology and computational experiments to support the discovery and development of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
The companies announced the expanded collaboration on September 24, 2026, following the successful completion of an initial feasibility program that evaluated Turbine’s predictive modeling technology for ADC development.
Under the expanded collaboration, Daiichi Sankyo will use Turbine’s vLab platform to run Virtual Assays, which are computational experiments designed to simulate biological responses across a large number of conditions. The approach is intended to help researchers explore complex biology, identify promising options and prioritize experiments for laboratory testing.
The collaboration will focus on Daiichi Sankyo’s proprietary ADC programs. Researchers will combine Daiichi Sankyo’s experience in ADC development with Turbine’s computational modeling capabilities to support data-driven decisions during the discovery process.
ADC development can involve testing different payloads, drug combinations, cancer indications and biomarkers. As the number of possible combinations grows, researchers can face a large number of experiments before identifying the most promising approaches. Turbine’s technology is designed to help explore some of these possibilities computationally before moving selected ideas into the laboratory.
The companies will also use a lab-in-the-loop approach. In this model, computational experiments generate hypotheses that can be tested in the laboratory. Results from those experiments can then be fed back into the computational models, helping improve future predictions.
Turbine said the initial feasibility work generated insights relevant to ADC research and gave the companies confidence to expand the collaboration. Its vLab platform will now be applied to Daiichi Sankyo’s ADC programs to investigate biological responses and help prioritize research decisions.
Daiichi Sankyo has one of the industry’s leading ADC portfolios, with eight ADCs in clinical development. Its portfolio includes Enhertu and Datroway, which are being developed and commercialized globally with AstraZeneca, as well as several other investigational ADC programs.
For Turbine, the expanded partnership adds to its work with pharmaceutical companies on using virtual biology for drug discovery. The company has also reported collaborations involving ADC research with other major pharmaceutical companies.
The companies expect the expanded use of computational experiments to help researchers examine a broader range of biological questions and select experiments that can provide the most useful information for ADC development.