Celgene and Exscientia to partner on AI drug discovery

Celgene and Exscientia are set to collaborate on an artificial intelligence drug discovery, focused on accelerating drug discovery in oncology and autoimmunity, specifically on speeding up delivery of new treatments for patients by using Exscientia’s cutting-edge Centaur Chemist AI drug discovery platform, which has already demonstrated its ability to cut timelines to discover pre-clinical drug candidates.
There will be an initial $25 million upfront payment, with Exscientia being eligible to receive significant milestone and royalty payments based on future sales and successes.
CEO of Exscientia, Professor Andrew Hopkins, said: “We’re incredibly proud to collaborate with Celgene and to sign another partnership with a key industry player, reinforcing our place at the forefront of AI drug discovery. Today, patients can wait more than ten years from initial drug discovery to its availability as a treatment. With autoimmune diseases and cancer rates increasing, the pharmaceutical industry’s R&D productivity needs to dramatically improve – and technology is a key part of this. Since our pioneer Nature papers in the field, we have been developing our AI platform on the principle that AI combined with human creativity can significantly accelerate the drug discovery process and thus drastically improve access of new drugs to the market. We’re excited to work with Celgene to drive this transformational change in new therapeutic areas.”