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Drug discovery leader Marcus Schindler joins Cradle’s Advisory Board

Former Novo Nordisk CSO partners with Cradle to speed design and development of therapeutics with enterprise-grade AI protein engineering platform

Mar 3

Stef

Mar 3

Stef

AMSTERDAM & ZURICH – March 03, 2026 – 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.”

“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.

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’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.

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.