AbbVie and Iambic Announce Collaboration to Accelerate AI-driven Drug Discovery

• Multi-year partnership applies Iambic's AI platform to speed up small molecule drug discovery in immunology, neuroscience and oncology
• Companies to pursue programs with both first-in-class and best-in-class potential, combining Iambic's molecular superintelligence platform with AbbVie's therapeutic area expertise

NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. and SAN DIEGO, Sept. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) and Iambic, a clinical-stage life sciences and technology company developing novel medicines through its AI-driven discovery and development platform, today announced a multi-year collaboration to accelerate the discovery and development of small molecule therapies with first-in-class and best-in-class potential across immunology, neuroscience and oncology. The companies will leverage Iambic's AI platform to improve the efficiency and success of identifying promising new drug candidates.

"We are excited about the purpose-built AI capabilities Iambic is bringing to our Discovery scientists," said Nicholas Donoghoe, M.D., executive vice president and chief business and strategy officer, AbbVie. "We believe AI will be a powerful catalyst for scientific innovation across AbbVie. By equipping our teams with fit-for-purpose AI solutions, we can accelerate discovery, expand what is possible in R&D and significantly advance our commitment to making a remarkable impact for patients."

"Combining Iambic's platform with the drug-hunting expertise of AbbVie scientists can help us make more precise decisions about the molecules we pursue," said Jonathon Sedgwick, Ph.D., senior vice president and global head of discovery research, AbbVie. "The goal of our collaboration with Iambic is to design better molecules more efficiently and improve our probability of success, ultimately to deliver breakthrough medicines for patients sooner."

In traditional small molecule discovery, scientists evaluate dozens of properties for each candidate individually. Iambic's molecular superintelligence platform is powered by Enchant and NeuralPLexer, technologies designed to optimize the full range of candidate properties simultaneously, increasing the chance of making better molecules while reducing drug discovery timelines.

The collaboration will utilize Enchant v3, Iambic's next-generation multimodal transformer model that combines biomedical data modalities from across the drug discovery process and enables many drug design hypotheses to be tested in parallel and at scale. Enchant v3 is designed to achieve industry-leading prediction accuracy across drug discovery and development and is trained on over 6,000 molecular properties.

"Iambic's mission is to make better technology for better medicines — in our own hands and with partners," said Tom Miller, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO, Iambic. "We are eager to bring Iambic's molecular superintelligence platform to bear alongside AbbVie's world-class team to address unmet patient need. We anticipate an impactful collaboration — for Iambic, for AbbVie, and for the patients we serve."

Under the terms of the collaboration, Iambic will receive an upfront payment and is eligible to receive success-based milestone payments and tiered royalties on net sales from products generated from the collaboration.

About AI@AbbVie

AI@AbbVie is AbbVie's enterprise approach to using artificial intelligence (AI) to advance scientific innovation, strengthen business outcomes and improve how medicines are discovered, developed and delivered to patients. AI is an important enabler of our mission, helping employees enhance productivity, strengthen decision-making and accelerate progress across R&D, operations and other core business functions. Guided by human expertise, responsible governance and a commitment to meaningful impact, we are embedding AI across the enterprise to accelerate innovation and help improve patients' lives.

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, neuroscience and oncology – and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

About Iambic Therapeutics, Inc.

Iambic's mission is to make better technology for better medicines. By utilizing molecular superintelligence — integrating proprietary AI with automated, scalable chemistry and biology experimentation — our platform is designed to address the totality of drug discovery and development. The utility of our platform has been demonstrated by the discovery of a novel drug candidate advanced to clinic in approximately two years, along with a diverse preclinical pipeline. Our leading AI technologies include Enchant and NeuralPLexer for multimodal endpoint prediction designed to improve the speed, precision, and success rates of drug discovery and clinical development. At Iambic, we are building an engine that is designed to power the future of medicine. | iambic.ai

AbbVie Forward-Looking Statements 

Some statements in this news release are, or may be considered, forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "project" and similar expressions and uses of future or conditional verbs, generally identify forward-looking statements. AbbVie cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, challenges to intellectual property, competition from other products, difficulties inherent in the research and development process, adverse litigation or government action, changes to laws and regulations applicable to our industry, the impact of global macroeconomic factors, such as economic downturns or uncertainty, international conflict, trade disputes and tariffs, and other uncertainties and risks associated with global business operations. Additional information about the economic, competitive, governmental, technological and other factors that may affect AbbVie's operations is set forth in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," of AbbVie's 2025 Annual Report on Form 10-K, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and in other documents that AbbVie subsequently files with the Securities and Exchange Commission that update, supplement or supersede such information. AbbVie undertakes no obligation, and specifically declines, to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking statements as a result of subsequent events or developments, except as required by law. 

SOURCE AbbVie