Novartis AG

Former Novo Nordisk CSO partners with Cradle to speed design and development of therapeutics with enterprise-grade AI protein engineering platform AMSTERDAM and ZURICH, March 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cradle, the enterprise-grade AI platform for protein engineering, today announced Marcus Schindler, Ph.D., has joined its advisory board to help accelerate the platform's scientific impact and drive broader adoption of AI-powered protein engineering across the life sciences industry. "Marcus is renowned for modernizing drug discovery at some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies," said Stef van Grieken, co-founder and CEO of Cradle. "He has been transformative in building thriving cultures that turn technology into a genuine competitive advantage, disrupt drug discovery to deliver better outcomes and adopt AI solutions at larger scale. We're excited to work closely with Marcus and draw on his deep experience driving R&D innovation to apply AI in practical, meaningful ways across biologics discovery and development." Schindler previously served as Executive Vice President for Research & Early Development and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Novo Nordisk, where he oversaw a broad pipeline spanning multiple therapeutic areas and modalities, advanced numerous programs from discovery into clinical development, and strengthened external collaborations to expand access to emerging technologies and scientific capabilities. "I've seen over the course of my career that a major challenge for large pharma is to integrate AI solutions directly into complex, established R&D workflows in a way that actually empowers and augments scientists and advances programs. Cradle's team stands out because they appreciate the reality of complex drug discovery and are driving robust, reliable and repeatable results for scientists at the bench," said Schindler. "I've seen firsthand how their platform can go beyond pilot programs to scalable applications. Due to the nature of their business model this enables the simultaneous building of complementary state-of-the-art AI capabilities internally and I believe this represents the future of AI-powered biotech solutions." Cradle accelerated the adoption and impact of its platform in 2025, which now powers more than 50 protein R&D programs worldwide. The company partners with six of the top 25 global biopharma organizations, including Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, and Novo Nordisk, and kicked off 2026 announcing a new partnership with Bayer to accelerate antibody discovery. Cradle deploys a traditional SaaS model that enables in-house talent to easily use integrated tools for protein engineering various modalities including enzymes, peptides, vaccines, and antibodies while retaining all asset rights. Customers are using Cradle's platform to speed up early research and development from two to 12 times, while driving significant cost efficiencies across a diverse range of programs. About Cradle Cradle's mission is to make engineering biology easier, quicker and more cost-effective. Its enterprise-grade AI software platform currently serves six out of the top 25 global pharma companies, and is used across over 50 R&D programs. With Cradle, scientists can engineer better proteins, faster and more successfully, speeding up the development cycle of new therapeutics and bio-based products such as antibodies, enzymes, and bio-based materials. Cradle is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Zurich, Switzerland; and the United States with a team of machine learning and biotech research specialists with experience at many of the world's leading technology and biotech companies, including Google, Novartis, Meta, Zymergen, Uber, Deepmind and Generate Biomedicines. Cradle is backed by IVP as well as Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. For more information, visit cradle.bio. SOURCE Cradle 21% more press release views with Request a Demo

Downtown Holly Springs , North Carolina, iStock, zimmytws Infrastructure and location have helped make Holly Springs a future hub for obesity drug production, with Amgen and Roche planning to manufacture GLP-1 therapies there to compete in the growing market. A North Carolina town with around 50,000 residents has emerged as a vital launchpad for two planned attacks on the obesity market. Amgen and Roche are pouring more than $3.5 billion into Holly Springs to make medicines that could challenge Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk for the market. The quick-fire investments are built on a 20-year campaign to create an attractive environment for drugmakers. Novartis put Holly Springs on the biopharma map when it unveiled plans to build a vaccine manufacturing plant in the town in 2006. Holly Springs’ support for the facility, which is now run by CSL Seqirus, led to the town being overextended financially and facing significant gaps in meeting Novartis’ demands for cleared land, a new road, water and sewer service and a fire truck. Yet the project set the stage for a series of industry commitments, including a recent obesity-focused investment surge. Amgen broke ground on a $550 million drug substance production plant in the town in 2022. The biotech committed a further $1 billion in late 2024 as the magnitude of the opportunity open to its obesity drug candidate MariTide became clear. Roche’s Genentech was even quicker to double down on Holly Springs, committing $700 million in May 2025 and adding another $1.3 billion to its plan in January 2026. Roche’s plant will manufacture obesity drug candidates, including its dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist CT-388. Amgen is running seven Phase 3 trials of MariTide with primary completion dates in 2027 and 2028. The biotech opened its first Holly Springs plant last year and expects to grow headcount across the site to 725 by 2032 as the second facility comes online and scales up. Roche reported Phase 2 data on CT-388 in January, positioning the company to start two Phase 3 trials in the first quarter of this year. The Swiss drugmaker expects its Holly Springs facility to be operational in 2029. Manufacturing To Compete in Obesity, Late Entrants Invest Early in Manufacturing Small and large drugmakers alike have made big, proactive moves to secure the production capacity that will be vital to serving the weight loss market. September 23, 2025 · 5 min read · Nick Paul Taylor Read more Michael Haley, executive director of Wake County Economic Development, explained how decisions officials in Holly Springs made years ago put the town in the running when Amgen and Roche began looking for sites to support their obesity ambitions. “They started planning to be a life science manufacturing hub 15, 20 years ago. They focused on very traditional economic development structures,” Haley told BioSpace . Those included a business park, greenfield sites, a graywater system and water and wastewater infrastructure. Accessing Talent Such infrastructure investments helped Holly Springs to capitalize on other advantages it offers. It’s located around 20 miles from Raleigh, North Carolina, which site selection specialist Global Location Strategies (GLS) ranked as the best place in the U.S. to build a biologics production plant. GLS CEO Didi Caldwell told BioSpace that the Raleigh-Cary metro area, which includes Holly Springs, topped the rankings because of the strength of its biopharma manufacturing workforce and strong pipeline of talent from universities in the area. The Durham–Chapel Hill metro area, which is next to Raleigh-Cary, ranked third on GLS’ list. “Durham-Chapel Hill is number one for biologic specialization,” Caldwell said. “They have this deep, deep heritage of biotech, pharma and regulated manufacturing, so they have an exceptional concentration of bioprocessing and quality assurance roles.” The availability of seasoned professionals and new trainees, plus the ability to attract people from other parts of the country and world, is critical because access to talent is a problem nationally. Caldwell said there are 60,000 vacancies in the pharma industry, adding that “you can build more plants, but if you cannot staff them you’re not going to be able to operate them.” Managing Growth Pressures Demand for talent in Holly Springs is increasing, with Amgen creating 370 jobs and Roche planning to employ more than 500 people at its site. Haley expressed confidence that the region can fill the new roles, pointing to the tens of thousands of people who annually graduate from local universities and community colleges or relocate to the region. “Fifteen years ago, we had 35,000 life science employees and people would ask, ‘Can we maintain our talent advantage?’ Now we have over 75,000 people,” Haley said. “We met the challenges through the years and we feel very confident . . . that we can continue to meet the needs of our existing companies.” As well as nurturing the talent to staff the sites, the region needs to ensure infrastructure including water and energy supply can cope with the rising demand. Holly Springs invested ahead of the local surge in obesity drug manufacturing, but meeting the needs of a growing manufacturing footprint and population, which increased 10% from 2020 to 2024 in the Raleigh metro area, is an ongoing challenge. Amid a data center boom, manufacturing facilities are part of a broader set of sites clamoring for water and energy. A company has applied to build a 300-megawatt data center about 10 miles from Holly Springs, sparking pushback from residents concerned about energy and water consumption. Similar situations are playing out across North Carolina as companies apply to build data centers. Haley said there is “pressure on infrastructure, just because of the sheer growth that we’re seeing” and the complexity of projects has changed dramatically in the past 5 to 10 years, with facilities requiring more capacity for water, wastewater and power. Officials have responded to the changes. “It’s hard to play catch-up when you’re dealing with infrastructure. You’re always a little behind the eight ball,” Haley said. “For us, the solution is to have as much foresight as possible so that our utility providers are calculating potential demand, putting that into their own models and acting accordingly when they’re developing the infrastructure that they need.”

iStock, Dmytro Kovalchuk Poplar Therapeutics is seeking a “step change” in the treatment of food allergy and other atopic conditions, with $95 million raised to date, including a $45 million series A extension that closed Tuesday. You may remember Chip Baird as the figurehead of 2seventy, the cell therapy biotech that struggled as a cancer-focused standalone and ultimately sold off to Bristol Myers Squibb in March 2025 for $286 million. That was a pretty good end to a tumultuous few years. Looking back on the sale, Baird told BioSpace that he was happy to know the staff would have a place to land. “It made a ton of sense for the program, for shareholders. All cash deal, really healthy premium, and we felt good about it, because most of the workforce had a path forward to a potential role with BMS,” Baird said. He, however, would not having a landing pad. “BMS already had a CEO,” Baird quipped. And so, he spent the summer thinking about his next move and listening for what was spurring the most excitement across the biotech world. He quickly ruled out the CAR T space, having spent the past few years on the technology. Cell Therapy As 2seventy Nears Breakeven, CEO Chip Baird Explains How the Team Survived To say that 2seventy bio’s short two years of existence have been dramatic is an understatement. CEO Chip Baird told BioSpace transparency and a committed staff have kept the biotech going through thick and thin. October 2, 2024 · 8 min read · Annalee Armstrong Read More “I kind of widened the aperture. That was really the goal, over the summer,” Baird said. “I heard a lot of different stories, and ultimately, the one I got the most excited about was Poplar.” And so, the week before the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in early January, Poplar Therapeutics officially launched with Baird as CEO. At the same time, the company announced a $50 million series A to support Phase 1 trials for PHB-050 in food allergy and other atopic conditions. Poplar followed the series A with an extension fundraising on Tuesday , adding $45 million. Baird credits scientific founder and chief scientific officer Tony Yao with sparking his interest and nuturing that spark into a full-fledged fire. “As I was doing my diligence and asking him questions about the program, you couldn’t outflank him. He really had thought of everything one could have in terms of the design of the program.” He called Yao’s knowledge of the allergy space “encyclopedic.” Baird knows that drug discovery is a risky business, no matter how prepared you are. But his interactions with Yao gave him confidence in Poplar. “What struck me was that it could still not work for things that can’t be known today,” Baird said. “But I walked away from that feeling like it won’t fail because we didn’t think of something.” The world will get to know Poplar quickly this year. The early-stage program for PHB-050 is expected to produce data in the second half. The drug is a next-generation anti-IgE antibody that is expected to tackle multiple atopic diseases, such as food allergy, asthma and atopic dermatitis. It could also have applications in less common immunology and inflammatory diseases. It’s designed to block IgE from binding to mast cells that trigger allergic reactions as well as to reduce circulating IgE and inhibit its production. While the early trial focuses on food allergy, Baird said the learnings will help inform an expansion into other conditions. Mergers & acquisitions BMS Buys Abecma Partner 2seventy for $286M, Ending Cost Sharing Agreement Abecma made $406 million in 2024, of which BMS paid $43 million to 2seventy bio as part of their profit-sharing agreement. March 11, 2025 · 3 min read · Tristan Manalac Read More Poplar will be going up against a heavy hitter in the industry: Genentech and Novartis’ Xolair, which has a broad label for allergic conditions including food allergy and asthma. Baird said that PHB-050 works differently than the incumbent therapy. While Xolair also binds and sequesters IgE, the drug does not eliminate it. PHB-050, on the other hand, could actually drive IgE to zero, he said. Additionally, Baird said that Xolair must be injected every two weeks. PHB-050 will likely be every four weeks. “One of the principal questions that we get when we meet with investors . . . is the competitive landscapes,” Baird said. “The competitive landscape is, I would say, intense right now, and so I think being differentiated is important in terms of having something that could transform the way these diseases are treated.” He is not naive to think that Poplar can simply walk in and push Xolair aside, however. The approved drug has seen rapid uptake in its newest indication of IgE-mediated food allergy, with about 85,000 U.S. patients receiving prescriptions since the February 2024 FDA nod. But Baird says there are actually about 7 million patients with higher-risk food allergy that result in an ER visit, meaning there’s plenty of untapped market. And patients with higher IgE levels and higher body weight are unable to take Xolair, the CEO explained. To tap into the rest of the market, Baird reiterated that Poplar will have to create a differentiated product. “We’re not looking for something incremental. We’re looking for something different [that’s] sort of a step change forward.” .responsive-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; border: 1px solid #ededed; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-left { flex: 1; max-width: 45%; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-right { flex: 2; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } @media (max-width: 768px) { .column-left, .column-right { max-width: 100%; flex: 100%; padding: 10px 0; } } Subscribe to BioPharm Executive! Market insights, trending business and policy stories for biopharma leaders hbspt.forms.create({ region: "na1", portalId: "4413123", formId: "7c139b3c-ff0b-44e0-bffe-f449801dca59", onFormSubmitted: function($form, data) { window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; window.dataLayer.push({ 'event': 'GTMevent', 'event_name': 'newsletter_sign_up' }); } });