ProQR Announces AI-Powered Partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks

Biotech firm forms AI Advisory Board to accelerate Axiomer RNA editing platform

Apr. 8, 2026 at 2:13pm

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ProQR Therapeutics, a company dedicated to transformative RNA therapies, has announced a strategic partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to leverage Ginkgo's autonomous lab for high-throughput data generation to support ProQR's AI-enabled drug discovery for its Axiomer™ RNA editing platform. ProQR has also formed an AI Advisory Board comprising leaders from the AI and techbio fields to provide guidance on applying AI to accelerate Axiomer drug discovery and optimization.

Why it matters

This partnership and AI strategy represent a significant step forward for ProQR in harnessing the power of AI and automation to drive innovation in RNA-based therapeutics. By tapping into Ginkgo's cutting-edge lab capabilities and expert AI advisors, ProQR aims to dramatically scale up its drug discovery efforts and bring its first AI-generated development candidate into the clinic by 2026.

The details

Under the partnership, ProQR will gain access to Ginkgo's 50+ instrument autonomous lab, Nebula, which is expected to increase the scale and speed of experimental data generation for ProQR's AI-enabled discovery models. ProQR also established an AI Advisory Board with experts from companies like Owkin, NVIDIA, Hugging Face, and Leiden University to provide strategic guidance on best practices and emerging approaches in AI-powered drug discovery.

  • ProQR expects to advance its first AI-generated program into the clinic with a clinical trial application (CTA) anticipated in mid-2026.
  • Initial clinical data for the AI-generated development candidate is anticipated by the end of 2026.

The players

ProQR Therapeutics

A company dedicated to creating transformative RNA therapies, including its proprietary Axiomer™ RNA editing platform.

Ginkgo Bioworks

A biotechnology company that provides an autonomous laboratory platform to enable high-throughput data generation for AI-powered drug discovery.

Eric Durand, PhD

Chief Data Science Officer at Owkin and member of ProQR's AI Advisory Board.

David Ruau, PhD

Head of BD EMEA, Healthcare & Life Sciences at NVIDIA and member of ProQR's AI Advisory Board.

Thomas Wolf

Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of Hugging Face and member of ProQR's AI Advisory Board.

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What they’re saying

“Over the last 18 months we have developed an AI model that leads to significant acceleration and improvement of editing oligonucleotides in drug discovery.”

— Daniel A. de Boer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ProQR

“We're pleased to have announced the partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks, providing us access to their state-of-the-art autonomous lab enabling high throughput data generation to further scale up our AI-enabled drug discovery.”

— Daniel A. de Boer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ProQR

What’s next

ProQR expects to advance its first AI-generated program into the clinic with a clinical trial application (CTA) anticipated in mid-2026, and initial clinical data anticipated by the end of 2026.

The takeaway

This partnership and AI strategy represent a significant step forward for ProQR in harnessing the power of AI and automation to drive innovation in RNA-based therapeutics, with the potential to dramatically accelerate the company's drug discovery efforts and bring its first AI-generated development candidate into the clinic by 2026.