Novartis inked a multi‑program, strategic collaboration with Relation Therapeutics worth up to $1.7 billion to discover and develop targets for atopic and other immune‑driven dermatologic diseases. Novartis will provide upfront cash, equity and R&D funding while Relation will generate patient‑derived multi‑omic data and functional cell atlases using its Lab‑in‑the‑Loop AI platform. Relation will oversee observational studies and target discovery work; Novartis retains worldwide development and commercialization rights to any resulting targets. The deal underscores big pharma’s appetite for data‑driven target discovery and for marrying patient‑derived human biology with AI to de‑risk early discovery. Executives framed the collaboration as combining Novartis’ development scale with Relation’s experimental and computational systems to accelerate identification of clinically actionable targets in immuno‑dermatology.