Exscientia (NASDAQ:EXAI) shares moved upward Friday, as the company and Sanofi hooked up on a project.
The two companies announced today a groundbreaking research collaboration and license agreement to develop up to 15 novel small molecule candidates across oncology and immunology, leveraging Exscientia’s end-to-end AI-driven platform utilizing actual patient samples.
The companies have been working together since 2016 and in 2019, Sanofi in-licensed Exscientia’s novel bispecific small molecule candidate capable of targeting two distinct targets in inflammation and immunology.
Exscientia and Sanofi will collaborate to identify and select target projects, leveraging Exscientia’s personalized medicine platform. The platform enables a "patient-first" approach through integrating primary human tissue samples into early target and drug discovery research.
By doing so, Exscientia scientists can integrate patient, disease, and clinically relevant data into decisions on potential new medicine candidates earlier in the drug creation process. In addition to target discovery, Exscientia will lead small molecule drug design and lead optimization activities up to development candidate nomination, with Sanofi assuming responsibility for preclinical and clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization.
"It is immensely exciting to collaborate with Sanofi with our goal of realizing the full potential of AI to deliver the next generation of cancer and immunology medicines,” said Exscentia CEOAndrew Hopkins.
"Our AI-driven platform can be leveraged across drug discovery, translational research and development, with applications ranging from improving the precision medicine and quality of drug candidates to enriching for patient selection in clinical trials."
EXAI shares jumped $1.75, or 9.6%, to 19.94.
