Evotec Invests €15m In AI-driven Exscientia
Executive Summary
Evotec has deepened its relationship with artificial intelligence company Exscientia by investing €15m in the UK-based company; the CRO wants to build on the pair's existing collaboration in immuno-oncology and use its stake to diversify the AI firm's portfolio.
Evotec AG has made a €15m investment in artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company, Exscientia Ltd. – becoming its first strategic shareholder.
The two companies are not strangers and this buy in builds upon their existing drug discovery partnership in immuno-oncology.
Evotec's CEO Werner Lanthaler told Scrip that the ongoing partnership will continue, with oncology remaining the initial focus. "We will expand our current initiative especially in oncology first, but that does not mean the technology can't be used anywhere else," Lanthaler said. He explained that there are many novel targets in oncology that could present treatments and using AI as a prediction tool will enable the identification of the right one.
This move will also enable Evotec to offer these AI capabilities to its partners, giving them a "competitive advantage." Lanthaler added that "the €15m is a strong signal" that it has found Exscientia to be a "very ideal partner," however Evotec is open to working with other AI companies.
Under its ongoing partnership, the companies identified a novel selective A2AR antagonist in April 2017, which is currently being explored for candidate selection. Exscientia's CEO Andrew Hopkins said, "We also continue to have good progress designing high quality small molecules to the novel target CD73."
Earlier this year Hopkins told Scrip that the company's technology will allow for much faster drug development. "What we've done is develop a form of artificial intelligence that is able to design molecules. Applying our approach to client discovery projects has already delivered candidate-quality molecules in roughly one-quarter of the time, and at one-quarter of the cost of traditional approaches," he explained.
Exscientia has been fairly active in securing partnerships in the pharma space; its partners include GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Sanofi. With plans to expand its own internal discovery program, Hopkins believes that this new funding from Evotec will accelerate Exscientia's growth (Also see "Another Big Pharma Embraces AI As Exscientia Bags GSK" - Scrip, 4 Jul, 2017.) (Also see "Quest To Use AI In Drug Discovery Joins Sanofi and Exscientia" - Scrip, 9 May, 2017.).
"The idea of having innovation in medicine and chemistry is not something many people have worked on in the past few years. Most of the innovation happens in biology at this stage, but creating a novel platform in chemistry is something where we feel there is potential. It has the potential of reducing costs and time when finding the right targets," said Lanthaler.