On May 21, Sanofi announced that it had reached an agreement with Formation Bio and OpenAI to collaborate on building AI-driven software to accelerate drug development. Sanofi stated that the collaboration with OpenAI would allow it to access proprietary data for the development of AI models for its biopharmaceutical models.
Regarding the newly announced collaboration, the French pharmaceutical giant stated that Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI will jointly pool data, software, and tuned models to develop customized, dedicated solutions across the entire drug development lifecycle. This marks the first such collaboration within the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Sanofi will leverage the partnership to provide proprietary data for developing AI models, aiming to become the first large-scale AI-driven biopharmaceutical company.
This also represents Sanofi's latest move in the AI field. Compared with previous partners, the simultaneous participation of OpenAI, a driving force behind the generative AI wave, and Formation Bio, a clinical trial technology developer, has successfully enabled Sanofi’s “All in AI” strategy to "break through the circle."
At the same time, compared with the previous "find that molecule," Sanofi's intention in this cooperation is obviously to attempt more. However, whether it can succeed still needs to be verified by time.
From the perspective of partners, OpenAI is one of the most highly regarded companies globally, and it is behind ChatGPT. Within just five days of its launch, ChatGPT amassed a user base of 1 million. Subsequently, over the following year, nearly all major global tech companies joined the AI race. To this day, generative AI remains one of the most closely watched topics in the technology industry.
Formation Bio is also a company associated with OpenAI, and it is a clinical trial startup. In December 2023, it was renamed to its current name, Formation Bio. In September 2021, during its $150 million Series C funding round, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman personally led the investment in this company. During the same period, its investors also included Sequoia Capital, which helped the company gain some recognition.
However, Formation Bio, established in 2016, operates with a business model focused on finding patients through digital means and conducting research and data collection via telemedicine and at-home testing. It essentially functions as a digital CRO (Contract Research Organization). Previously, Formation Bio was known as "TrialSpark." During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, to accelerate the development of drugs and vaccines and reduce the cost of clinical trials, TrialSpark, under the guidance of Sam Altman, collaborated with companies researching coronavirus treatments.
For now, it is temporarily unpredictable how far Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI can go together. However, in recent years, Sanofi has repeatedly demonstrated its determination to continuously participate in the journey of AI-assisted drug development. In June 2023, Sanofi announced "All in AI," marking a new step in the company’s digital transformation.
Earlier, Sanofi had made moves to double down on AI. For instance, in early January 2022, Sanofi and Exscientia announced a collaboration to develop up to 15 novel small-molecule drug candidates in the fields of oncology and immunology. The collaboration included an upfront payment of $100 million in cash, and if all subsequent milestones were achieved, Exscientia's total earnings could reach $5.2 billion.
It was during this collaboration that AI's role in drug development was recognized by leading pharmaceutical companies, as it involved 15 candidate drugs. This has sparked a new wave of attention to AI-driven drug discovery in China. However, Sanofi has been collaborating with Exscientia since 2016. In 2019, Sanofi authorized Exscientia to develop novel bispecific small-molecule drug candidates capable of targeting two distinct pathways related to inflammation and immunity.
In addition, in December last year, Sanofi also reached a multi-year cooperation agreement with the French start-up company Aqemia. Aqemia will use its generative artificial intelligence (AI), deep physics algorithms, and platform to design new drug molecules. Sanofi will pay Aqemia 140 million US dollars, but the specific development plan and disease area details have not been disclosed.
This is not the first collaboration between Sanofi and Aqemia. In 2020, Sanofi decided to apply Aqemia's technology to the design and discovery of new molecules for multiple oncology-related projects. Then, in 2022, Aqemia announced the extension of its collaboration with Sanofi on AI and quantum physics-driven oncology drug discovery.
Setting aside Sanofi's preference for AI and digitalization, from the perspective of development trends, the pharmaceutical industry is facing an unprecedented issue of patent expiration. This will lead to a large number of drugs becoming or already having become generic. Following the competitors' imitation and the subsequent price wars, corporate revenues are bound to decline. Companies encountering this challenge include Sanofi.
Moody's issued a report in June 2022 stating that leading pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Merck, would face significant patent cliff risks in a decade. Specifically, Bristol Myers Squibb is encountering considerable challenges because its multiple myeloma drug lenalidomide (Revlimid), cancer monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo, or "O" drug), and blood thinner apixaban (Eliquis) will lose patent protection. The peak erosion of a large portion of its market share is expected to occur between 2026 and 2029.
At the same time, due to being easier to imitate, Pfizer's traditional oral products are more vulnerable to rapid erosion after patent expiration. Palbociclib (Ibrance), Tafamidis meglumine/Tafamidis (Vyndaqel/Vyndamax), Tofacitinib (Xeljanz), and Enzalutamide (Xtandi) all fall into this category. Additionally, this includes Apixaban (Eliquis), which is a collaboration between Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Excluding COVID-19 products, these drugs accounted for 40% of Pfizer's revenue in 2021.
For Merck, as a complex biologic that is difficult to replicate, Merck's pembrolizumab (K drug, Keytruda) is not expected to be significantly impacted. However, the company will lose patent protection for oral drugs such as olaparib (Lynparza) and lenvatinib (Lenvima). Therefore, pharmaceutical companies indeed have a need to build up future pipelines through various means, including acquisitions, collaborations with AI companies, and more.
In collaborations with AI companies, in the early stages, large pharmaceutical enterprises tend to obtain more developed products from AI drug discovery companies. This approach is similar to parts of Insilico Medicine’s current business model. For instance, in April 2019, GlaxoSmithKline obtained a candidate drug discovered through artificial intelligence from Exscientia, which is a potential treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Then, in August 2021, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the application of an immunomodulatory candidate drug developed by Exscientia. Currently, cooperation between pharmaceutical companies and AI firms is gradually deepening.
In June 2023, Zhang Peiyu, Chief Scientist of XtalPi, stated in an interview with The Paper that AI is currently mainly applied in the discovery and preclinical development stages of chemical drugs and biologics. Before the introduction of AI, manual screening of compounds was inefficient, progressed slowly, and involved a certain degree of luck. After the introduction of AI, it can "self-challenge" by both predicting and designing millions of potentially drug-like compounds and building models to screen molecules, thereby comprehensively evaluating their drug-likeness, activity, selectivity, etc., which enhances the probability of success.
In addition, generative AI is also a current investment hotspot, attracting some A-share listed companies to make investments. For example, Jiuan Medical. In its 2023 annual report, the company stated that it participated in the investment of relevant entities of MoonShot, a Chinese large language model AI startup, with an investment amount equivalent to 30 million US dollars. This move further demonstrates the company's deep involvement and long-term attention in the field of technological innovation.
Interface News reporter |Huang Hua
Interface News Editor |Xie Xin
On May 21, Sanofi announced that it had reached an agreement with Formation Bio and OpenAI to collaborate on building AI-driven software to accelerate drug development. Sanofi stated that the collaboration with OpenAI would allow it to access proprietary data for developing AI models for its biopharmaceutical models.
For the newly announced collaboration, the French pharmaceutical giant stated that Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI will jointly pool data, software, and tuned models to develop customized, dedicated solutions throughout the drug development lifecycle. This marks the first such collaboration within the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Sanofi will leverage the partnership to provide proprietary data for developing AI models, becoming the first large-scale AI-driven biopharmaceutical company.
This also represents Sanofi's latest move in the AI field. Compared with previous partners, the simultaneous participation of OpenAI, a driving force behind the generative AI wave, and Formation Bio, a clinical trial technology developer, has successfully enabled Sanofi's "All in AI" strategy to "break through the circle."
At the same time, compared with the previous "find that molecule," Sanofi's intention in this cooperation is obviously to attempt more. However, whether it can succeed still needs to be verified by time.
From the perspective of partners, OpenAI is one of the most highly regarded companies globally, and it is the creator of ChatGPT. Within just five days of its launch, ChatGPT amassed a user base of 1 million. Subsequently, over the following year, nearly all major global tech giants joined the AI race. To this day, generative AI remains one of the most talked-about topics in the technology industry.
Formation Bio is also a company associated with OpenAI, and it is a clinical trial startup. In December 2023, it was renamed to its current name, Formation Bio. In September 2021, during its $150 million Series C financing round, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman led the investment in this company in his personal capacity. During the same period, its investors also included Sequoia Capital, which helped the company gain some recognition.
However, Formation Bio, established in 2016, operates on a business model based on digitally identifying patients and conducting research and data collection through methods such as telemedicine and at-home testing, functioning essentially as a digital CRO (Contract Research Organization for pharmaceutical R&D outsourcing). Previously, Formation Bio was known as "TrialSpark." During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, to accelerate the development of drugs and vaccines and reduce clinical trial costs, TrialSpark, under the facilitation of Sam Altman, collaborated with companies researching coronavirus treatments.
For now, it is temporarily unpredictable how far Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI can go together. However, in recent years, Sanofi has more than once demonstrated its determination to continuously participate in the journey of AI-assisted drug development. In June 2023, Sanofi announced "All in AI," marking a new step in the company’s digital transformation.
Earlier, Sanofi had made moves to double down on AI. For instance, in early January 2022, Sanofi and Exscientia announced a collaboration to develop up to 15 novel small-molecule drug candidates in the fields of oncology and immunology. The collaboration included an upfront payment of $100 million in cash, and if all subsequent milestones were achieved, Exscientia's total earnings could reach $5.2 billion.
It was during this collaboration that AI's role in drug development was recognized by leading pharmaceutical companies, as it involved 15 candidate drugs. AI-driven drug discovery also sparked a new wave of attention in China. However, Sanofi has been collaborating with Exscientia since 2016. In 2019, Sanofi authorized Exscientia to develop novel bispecific small-molecule drug candidates capable of targeting two distinct pathways related to inflammation and immunity.
In addition, in December last year, Sanofi also reached a multi-year cooperation agreement with Aqemia, a French start-up company. Aqemia will use its generative artificial intelligence (AI), deep physics algorithms, and platform to design novel drug molecules, and Sanofi will pay Aqemia 140 million US dollars. However, the specific development plans and disease area details have not been disclosed.
This is not the first collaboration between Sanofi and Aqemia. In 2020, Sanofi decided to apply Aqemia's technology to the design and discovery of new molecules for multiple oncology-related projects. Then, in 2022, Aqemia announced the extension of its collaboration with Sanofi on AI and quantum physics-driven oncology drug discovery.
Setting aside Sanofi's preference for AI and digitalization, the pharmaceutical industry is facing an unprecedented issue of patent expiration in terms of development trends. This will result in a large number of drugs becoming or already having become generic. Following the competition from rivals' generic versions and the subsequent price wars, corporate profits are bound to decline. Companies encountering this challenge include Sanofi.
Moody's issued a report in June 2022 stating that leading pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Merck, would face significant patent cliff risks in a decade. Specifically, Bristol Myers Squibb is encountering substantial challenges because its multiple myeloma drug lenalidomide (Revlimid), cancer monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo, or "O" drug), and blood thinner apixaban (Eliquis) will lose patent protection, with the peak erosion of most of their market share expected to occur between 2026 and 2029.
At the same time, due to being easier to imitate, Pfizer's traditional oral products are more vulnerable to rapid erosion after patent expiration. Palbociclib (Ibrance), Tafamidis meglumine/Tafamidis (Vyndaqel/Vyndamax), Tofacitinib (Xeljanz), and Enzalutamide (Xtandi) all fall into this category. Additionally, this includes Apixaban (Eliquis), which Pfizer developed in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb. Excluding COVID-19 products, these drugs accounted for 40% of Pfizer's revenue in 2021.
For Merck, as a difficult-to-copy biologic product, Merck's pembrolizumab (K drug, Keytruda) is not expected to be significantly affected. However, the company will lose patent protection for oral drugs such as olaparib (Lynparza) and lenvatinib (Lenvima). Therefore, pharmaceutical companies actually have the need to reserve future pipelines through various methods. These methods include acquisitions, collaborations with AI companies, and more.
In collaborations with AI companies, large pharmaceutical enterprises initially preferred to obtain relatively mature products from AI-driven drug discovery companies, a model similar to some of Insilico Medicine’s current operations. For instance, in April 2019, GlaxoSmithKline acquired a candidate drug discovered through artificial intelligence from Exscientia, which is a potential treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Then, in August 2021, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the application of an immunomodulatory candidate drug developed by Exscientia. Currently, the cooperation between pharmaceutical companies and AI firms is gradually deepening.
In June 2023, Zhang Peiyu, Chief Scientist of XtalPi, stated in an interview with The Paper that AI is currently mainly applied in the discovery and preclinical development stages of chemical drugs and biologics. Before the introduction of AI, manual screening of compounds was inefficient, progressed slowly, and involved a certain degree of luck. After introducing AI, it can "self-challenge" by simultaneously predicting and designing millions of potentially drug-like compounds while building models to screen molecules, comprehensively evaluating their drug-likeness, activity, selectivity, etc., thereby increasing the probability of success.
Moreover, generative AI is also a current investment hotspot, attracting some A-share listed companies to make investments. For instance, Jiuan Medical. In its 2023 annual report, the company stated that it participated in the investment of relevant entities of MoonShot, a Chinese large language model AI startup, with an investment amount equivalent to 30 million US dollars. This move further demonstrates the company's deep involvement and long-term attention to the field of technological innovation.
Image source: Visual China
Interface News Reporter |Huang Hua
Interface News Editor |Xie Xin
On May 21, Sanofi announced that it had reached an agreement with Formation Bio and OpenAI to collaborate on building AI-driven software to accelerate drug development. Sanofi stated that the collaboration with OpenAI would allow it to access proprietary data to develop AI models for its biopharmaceutical models.
Regarding the newly announced collaboration, the French pharmaceutical giant stated that Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI will jointly pool data, software, and tuned models to develop tailored, dedicated solutions across the entire drug development lifecycle. This marks the first such collaboration within the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Sanofi will leverage the partnership to provide proprietary data for developing AI models, thereby becoming the first large-scale AI-driven biopharmaceutical company.
This also represents Sanofi's latest move in the AI field. Compared with previous partners, the simultaneous participation of OpenAI, a driving force behind the generative AI wave, and Formation Bio, a clinical trial technology developer, has enabled Sanofi's "All in AI" strategy to successfully "break through" beyond its original circle.
At the same time, compared with the previous "find that molecule," Sanofi's intention in this cooperation is obviously to attempt more. However, whether it can succeed still needs to be verified by time.
From the perspective of partners, OpenAI is one of the most highly regarded companies globally, and it is the creator of ChatGPT. Within just five days of its launch, ChatGPT amassed a user base of 1 million. Subsequently, over the following year, nearly all global tech giants joined the AI race. To this day, generative AI remains one of the most discussed topics in the technology industry.
Formation Bio is also a company associated with OpenAI, and it is a clinical trial startup. In December 2023, it was renamed to its current name, Formation Bio. In September 2021, during its $150 million Series C financing round, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman personally led the investment in this company. During the same period, its investors also included Sequoia Capital, which helped the company gain some recognition.
However, Formation Bio, established in 2016, operates on a business model that uses digital methods to identify patients and conducts research and data collection through telemedicine and at-home testing, functioning as a digital CRO (Contract Research Organization for pharmaceutical R&D outsourcing). Previously, Formation Bio was known as "TrialSpark." During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, to accelerate the development of drugs and vaccines and reduce the costs of clinical trials, TrialSpark, under the facilitation of Sam Altman, collaborated with companies researching treatments for the coronavirus.
For now, it is temporarily unpredictable how far Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI can go together. However, in recent years, Sanofi has repeatedly demonstrated its determination to remain actively involved in AI-assisted drug development. In June 2023, Sanofi announced its "All in AI" strategy, marking a new phase in the company’s digital transformation.
Earlier, Sanofi had made moves to double down on AI. For instance, in early January 2022, Sanofi and Exscientia announced a collaboration to develop up to 15 novel small-molecule drug candidates in the fields of oncology and immunology. The collaboration included an upfront payment of $100 million in cash, and if all subsequent milestones were achieved, Exscientia's total earnings could reach $5.2 billion.
It was during this collaboration that AI's role in drug development was considered to have gained recognition from leading pharmaceutical companies, as it involved 15 candidate drugs. This has sparked a new wave of attention to AI-driven drug discovery in China. However, Sanofi has been collaborating with Exscientia since 2016. In 2019, Sanofi authorized Exscientia to develop novel bispecific small-molecule drug candidates capable of targeting two distinct pathways related to inflammation and immunity.
In addition, in December last year, Sanofi also reached a multi-year cooperation agreement with Aqemia, a French start-up company. Aqemia will use its generative artificial intelligence (AI), deep physics algorithms, and platform to design novel drug molecules, and Sanofi will pay Aqemia 140 million US dollars. However, the details of the specific development plan and disease areas have not been disclosed.
This is not the first collaboration between Sanofi and Aqemia. In 2020, Sanofi decided to apply Aqemia's technology to the design and discovery of new molecules for multiple oncology-related projects. Then, in 2022, Aqemia announced the extension of its collaboration with Sanofi on AI and quantum physics-driven oncology drug discovery.
Setting aside Sanofi's preference for AI and digitalization, the pharmaceutical industry is facing an unprecedented issue of patent expiration from a developmental perspective. This will result in a large number of drugs becoming or already having become generic. Following the competitors' imitation and the subsequent price war, corporate revenue is bound to decline. Companies encountering this challenge include Sanofi.
Moody's issued a report in June 2022 stating that leading pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Merck, would face significant patent cliff risks in a decade. Specifically, Bristol Myers Squibb is encountering considerable challenges because its multiple myeloma drug lenalidomide (Revlimid), cancer monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo, or "O" drug), and blood thinner apixaban (Eliquis) will lose patent protection. The peak erosion of a large portion of its market share is expected to occur between 2026 and 2029.
At the same time, due to being easier to imitate, Pfizer's traditional oral products are more vulnerable to rapid erosion after patent expiration. Palbociclib (Ibrance), Tafamidis meglumine/Tafamidis (Vyndaqel/Vyndamax), Tofacitinib (Xeljanz), and Enzalutamide (Xtandi) all fall into this category. Additionally, this includes Apixaban (Eliquis), which is a collaboration between Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Excluding COVID-19 products, these drugs accounted for 40% of Pfizer's revenue in 2021.
For Merck, as a complex biologic that is difficult to replicate, Merck's pembrolizumab (K drug, Keytruda) is not expected to be significantly impacted. However, the company will lose patent protection for oral drugs such as olaparib (Lynparza) and lenvatinib (Lenvima). Therefore, pharmaceutical companies indeed have a need to build up future pipelines through various means, including acquisitions, collaborations with AI companies, and more.
In collaborations with AI companies, large pharmaceutical enterprises initially preferred to obtain relatively mature products from AI-driven drug discovery companies, a model similar to part of Insilico Medicine’s current business. For instance, in April 2019, GlaxoSmithKline acquired a candidate drug discovered through artificial intelligence from Exscientia, which is a potential treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Then, in August 2021, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the application of an immune-modulatory candidate drug developed by Exscientia. Currently, the cooperation between pharmaceutical companies and AI firms is gradually deepening.
In June 2023, Zhang Peiyu, Chief Scientist of XtalPi, stated in an interview with The Paper that AI is currently mainly applied in the discovery and preclinical development stages of chemical drugs and biologics. Before the introduction of AI, manual screening of compounds was inefficient, progressed slowly, and involved a certain degree of luck. After the introduction of AI, it can "self-challenge" by both predicting and designing millions of potentially drug-like compounds and building models to screen molecules, thereby comprehensively evaluating their drug-likeness, activity, selectivity, etc., which increases the probability of success.
In addition, generative AI is also a current investment hotspot, attracting some A-share listed companies to make investments. For example, Jiuan Medical. In its 2023 annual report, the company stated that it participated in the investment of related entities of MoonShot, a Chinese large language model AI startup, with an investment amount equivalent to 30 million US dollars. This move further demonstrates the company's deep involvement and long-term attention in the field of technological innovation.
Interface News reporter |Huang Hua
Interface News Editor |Xie Xin
On May 21, Sanofi announced that it had reached an agreement with Formation Bio and OpenAI to collaborate on building AI-driven software to accelerate drug development. Sanofi stated that the collaboration with OpenAI would allow it to access proprietary data for the development of AI models for its biopharmaceuticals.
For the newly announced collaboration, the French pharmaceutical giant stated that Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI will jointly pool data, software, and tuned models to develop tailored, dedicated solutions across the entire drug development lifecycle. This marks the first such collaboration within the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Sanofi will leverage the partnership to provide proprietary data for developing AI models, thereby becoming the first large-scale AI-driven biopharmaceutical company.
This also represents Sanofi's latest move in the AI field. Compared with previous partners, the simultaneous participation of OpenAI, a driving force behind the generative AI wave, and Formation Bio, a clinical trial technology developer, has successfully enabled Sanofi’s “All in AI” strategy to "break through" its original circle.
At the same time, compared with the previous "find that molecule," Sanofi's intention in this cooperation is obviously to attempt more. However, whether it can succeed still needs to be verified by time.
From the perspective of partners, OpenAI is one of the most highly regarded companies globally, and it is behind ChatGPT. Within just five days of its launch, ChatGPT amassed a user base of 1 million. Subsequently, over the course of the following year, nearly all of the world’s major tech giants joined the AI race. To this day, generative AI remains one of the most talked-about topics in the technology industry.
Formation Bio is also a company associated with OpenAI, and it is a clinical trial startup. In December 2023, it was renamed to its current name, Formation Bio. In September 2021, during its $150 million Series C funding round, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman led the investment in this company in his personal capacity. During the same period, its investors also included Sequoia Capital, which contributed to making this company somewhat well-known.
However, Formation Bio, established in 2016, operates on a business model that leverages digital methods to identify patients and utilizes telemedicine and at-home testing for research and data collection, functioning essentially as a digital CRO (Contract Research Organization). Previously, Formation Bio was known as "TrialSpark." During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to expedite the development of drugs and vaccines and reduce the costs of clinical trials, TrialSpark, under the facilitation of Sam Altman, collaborated with companies researching treatments for the novel coronavirus.
For now, it is temporarily unpredictable how far Sanofi, Formation Bio, and OpenAI can go together. However, in recent years, Sanofi has repeatedly demonstrated its determination to remain actively involved in the journey of AI-assisted drug development. In June 2023, Sanofi announced its "All in AI" strategy, marking a new step in the company’s digital transformation.
Earlier, Sanofi had already made moves to invest more in AI. For instance, in early January 2022, Sanofi and Exscientia announced a collaboration to develop up to 15 novel small-molecule drug candidates in the fields of oncology and immunology. The collaboration included an upfront payment of $100 million in cash, and if all subsequent milestones were achieved, Exscientia's total earnings could reach $5.2 billion.
It was during this collaboration that AI's role in drug development was considered to have gained recognition from leading pharmaceutical companies, as it involved 15 candidate drugs. AI-driven drug discovery has thus sparked a new wave of attention in China. However, Sanofi began its collaboration with Exscientia as early as 2016. In 2019, Sanofi authorized Exscientia to develop novel bispecific small-molecule drug candidates capable of targeting two distinct pathways related to inflammation and immunity.
Additionally, in December last year, Sanofi also entered into a multi-year cooperation agreement with the French start-up Aqemia. Aqemia will use its generative artificial intelligence (AI), deep physics algorithms, and platform to design novel drug molecules, and Sanofi will pay Aqemia $140 million. However, the specific development plans and disease area details were not disclosed.
This is not the first collaboration between Sanofi and Aqemia. In 2020, Sanofi decided to apply Aqemia's technology to the design and discovery of new molecules for multiple oncology-related projects. Then, in 2022, Aqemia announced the extension of its collaboration with Sanofi on AI and quantum physics-driven oncology drug discovery.
Setting aside Sanofi's preference for AI and digitalization, the pharmaceutical industry is facing an unprecedented issue of patent expiration in terms of development trends. This will result in a large number of drugs becoming or already having become generic. Following the competitors' imitation and the subsequent price wars, corporate revenues are bound to decline. Sanofi is among the companies encountering this challenge.
Moody's issued a report in June 2022 stating that leading pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Merck, would face significant patent cliff risks in a decade. Specifically, Bristol-Myers Squibb is encountering substantial challenges because its multiple myeloma drug Lenalidomide (Revlimid), cancer monoclonal antibody Nivolumab (Opdivo, O drug), and blood thinner Apixaban (Eliquis) will lose patent protection. The peak erosion of a large portion of its market share is expected to occur between 2026 and 2029.
At the same time, due to being easier to imitate, Pfizer's traditional oral products are more vulnerable to rapid erosion after patent expiration. Palbociclib (Ibrance), Tafamidis meglumine/Tafamidis (Vyndaqel/Vyndamax), Tofacitinib (Xeljanz), and Enzalutamide (Xtandi) all fall into this category. Additionally, this includes Apixaban (Eliquis), which Pfizer developed in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb. Excluding COVID-19 products, these drugs accounted for 40% of Pfizer's revenue in 2021.
For Merck, as a difficult-to-copy biologic, Merck's pembrolizumab (K drug, Keytruda) is not expected to be significantly impacted. However, the company will lose patent protection for oral drugs such as olaparib (Lynparza) and lenvatinib (Lenvima). Therefore, pharmaceutical companies actually have the need to reserve future pipelines through various means. These methods include acquisitions, collaborations with AI companies, and more.
In collaborations with AI companies, large pharmaceutical enterprises initially preferred to obtain relatively mature products from AI-driven drug discovery companies, a model similar to part of Insilico Medicine’s current operations. For instance, in April 2019, GlaxoSmithKline acquired a candidate drug discovered through artificial intelligence from Exscientia, which is a potential treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Then, in August 2021, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the application of an immune-modulatory candidate drug developed by Exscientia. Currently, the collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and AI firms is progressively deepening.
In June 2023, Zhang Peiyu, Chief Scientist of XtalPi, stated in an interview with The Paper that AI is currently primarily applied in the discovery and preclinical development stages of chemical drugs and biologics. Before the introduction of AI, manual screening of compounds was inefficient, progressed slowly, and involved a degree of luck. After the introduction of AI, it can "self-challenge" by simultaneously predicting and designing millions of potentially drug-like compounds while building models to screen molecules, thereby comprehensively evaluating their drug-likeness, activity, selectivity, etc., which increases the probability of success.
In addition, generative AI is also a current investment hotspot, attracting some A-share listed companies to make investments. For example, Jiuan Medical. In its 2023 annual report, the company stated that it participated in the investment of relevant entities of MoonShot, a Chinese large language model startup in artificial intelligence, with an investment amount equivalent to 30 million US dollars. This move further demonstrates the company's deep involvement and long-term attention in the field of technological innovation.
