Sanofi and Exscientia Collab on Cancer and Immunology Research

Sanofi and Exscientia have revealed that they are working together on research and now have a licence agreement. This strategic move will contribute to the shared goal of generating up to 15 molecule candidates in the cancer and immunology sectors.

Sanofi’s initial investment will be $100 million to Exscientia, with a potential future milestone payment of $5.2bn.

Using Exscientia’s bespoke medicine program, the collaboration aims to help find new candidate medications and work on clinical access. By incorporating primary human tissue samples into the initial stages of research, the program takes a ‘patient-first’ vantage point.

Sanofi’s head of research, Frank Nestle, commented on the deal: “Sanofi’s collaboration with Exscientia aims to transform how we discover and develop new small molecule medicines for cancer and immune-mediated diseases. Application of sophisticated AI and machine learning methods will not only shorten drug discovery timelines but will also help to design higher quality and better targeted medicines for patients.”

CEO of Exscientia, Andrew Hopkins, explained that the “collaboration with Sanofi will utilise the breadth of our platform to test AI-designed drug candidates against patient tissue models, potentially providing far better accuracy than conventional approaches such as mouse models. When you consider the change this represents – testing candidates against actual human tissue years before a clinical trial – it’s transformative.”

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