Hansa Biopharma, the Swedish company behind the immunoglobulin G (IgG)-cleaving enzyme imlifidase, will use the AI protein-engineering platform from Dutch-Swiss firm Cradle to design its next generation of autoimmune drug candidates, the companies announced Oct. 1.

The collaboration pairs Cradle's computational protein-design tools with assets Hansa already owns: experimental data accumulated across its imlifidase program, disease knowledge in autoimmune indications, and in-house protein-engineering expertise. Hansa's scientists will run the combined workflow.

For Hansa, the deal signals a shift in how it builds its pipeline. Imlifidase, the company's marketed IgG-degrading enzyme, established its capability in antibody-cleaving biologics; the Cradle partnership extends that franchise into follow-on candidates designed with machine-learning support rather than purely wet-lab iteration. The companies did not disclose financial terms, candidate targets, or timeline milestones for the collaboration.

Cradle, which operates from the Netherlands and Switzerland, sells an AI platform aimed at making protein engineering faster and cheaper — a proposition that has drawn interest from biopharma companies under pressure to trim discovery budgets. The Hansa deal adds an autoimmune-focused customer to Cradle's roster, though neither party published benchmark data showing how the platform performs on enzymes of imlifidase's class.

The announcement leaves several questions open for R&D managers watching whether AI protein design delivers measurable value in partnered programs. Neither company specified which targets the collaboration will pursue first, how many candidates it aims to produce, or what success criteria — potency thresholds, developability metrics, or timeline compression — will govern the work. The structure of the deal, whether milestone-based or platform-subscription, also remains undisclosed.

What is concrete: Hansa's existing experimental datasets on IgG-cleaving enzymes give Cradle's models domain-specific training material, a factor that often determines whether generative protein-design tools outperform conventional directed-evolution campaigns. Hansa's statement emphasized that its scientists retain the lead role, combining Cradle's tools with the company's own engineering expertise rather than outsourcing discovery.

The collaboration begins against a backdrop of intensifying competition in enzyme-based antibody degradation, where follow-on candidates to imlifidase face pressure to improve on dosing convenience and immunogenicity. Whether Cradle's platform can accelerate that race will become visible only when Hansa advances designed candidates into development — the first test of the partnership's underlying assumption that AI-driven design can shorten the path from dataset to drug candidate.