By Sneha S K

Jan 9 (Reuters) - Schrodinger SDGR.O said on Friday it is collaborating with Eli Lilly LLY.N to offer the pharmaceutical major's AI-based platform, TuneLab, on its drug designing software.

Integration of Lilly's TuneLab into Schrodinger's LiveDesign will give biotech companies direct access to the artificial intelligence platform to help speed up drug development, the biotech software maker said.

Schrodinger's cloud-based platform, LiveDesign, helps chemists design compounds and predict the properties such as absorption and distribution of the experimental drug, helping them understand how a drug will behave in the body.

Drug developers are increasing adoption of AI for discovery and safety testing to get faster and cheaper results, in line with an FDA push to reduce animal testing in the near future.

Current LiveDesign clients will be able to use TuneLab in the first quarter of this year, while the AI software will be available to new users by the second quarter, Schrodinger's Chief Strategy Officer Karen Akinsanya said.

Lilly launched TuneLab, an AI and machine learning platform, last year to provide biotech companies access to drug discovery models trained on years of its research data. The drugmaker has already announced partnerships with several biotech companies to use its platform to develop drugs.

"More biotechs using the models means more diverse training data... Ultimately, this is about moving molecules through discovery faster for the patients who are waiting," Aliza Apple, global head of Lilly TuneLab, said.

(Reporting by Sneha S K in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)

((Sneha.SK@thomsonreuters.com;))