Absci Announces $247 Million AI-Driven Oncology Collaboration with AstraZeneca Following Merck Partnership

On December 4, Absci Corporation, a leader in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for antibody discovery, announced a collaboration with AstraZeneca to develop AI-designed antibodies targeting a tumor antigen. This collaboration combines Absci’s Integrated Drug Creation™ platform with AstraZeneca's expertise in oncology, aiming to accelerate the discovery of potential new cancer treatment candidates.

According to reports by Fierce Biotech and other foreign media, the cooperation agreement includes an upfront payment, R&D funding, and milestone payments, totaling $247 million. In addition, Absci is also eligible for sales royalties.

AbSci's Integrated Drug Creation™ Platform Leverages Generative AI and a Scalable Set of Wet Lab Technologies. The platform generates proprietary data by measuring millions of protein-protein interactions. This data is used to train AbSci’s proprietary AI models and subsequently validate antibodies designed using novel AI models in iterative cycles. The platform completes the cycle of data collection, AI-driven molecular design, and wet lab validation in approximately six weeks, significantly accelerating drug discovery. The Integrated Drug Creation™ platform also has the potential to expand the range of druggable targets, including the development of drugs for previously undruggable targets.

Notably, in addition to the latest collaboration with AstraZeneca, last month Absci also announced a partnership with biopharmaceutical company Almirall S.A. to develop and commercialize AI-designed treatments for combating chronic and debilitating skin conditions, with a potential total deal value of approximately $650 million. In January last year, pharmaceutical giant Merck also entered into a collaboration with Absci worth a total of $610 million.

Recent Transactions in the AI Pharmaceutical Field Continue Unabated. Last week, Phenomic AI successively announced collaborations with Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) and Astellas. The collaboration with BI focuses on discovering new cancer-related targets, with a potential total value exceeding 500 million US dollars. In October, Sanofi announced a collaboration with BioMap worth over 1 billion US dollars; in September, Novo Nordisk "partnered" with Valo Health (total transaction value exceeding 2.7 billion US dollars), Merck "partnered" with BenevolentAI and Exscientia... The continuous investment by pharmaceutical giants in artificial intelligence clearly demonstrates their confidence in the technology, and the steady stream of collaborations is expected to accelerate developments in the AI pharmaceutical field.

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References:

[1]https://investors.absci.com/news-releases/news-release-details/absci-announces-collaboration-astrazeneca-advance-ai-driven

[2]https://investors.absci.com/news-releases/news-release-details/almirall-and-absci-announce-ai-drug-discovery-partnership

[3]https://investors.absci.com/news-releases/news-release-details/absci-announces-research-collaboration-merck

[4]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231129546391/en/Phenomic-Enters-Strategic-Collaboration-with-Boehringer-Ingelheim-to-Discover-Novel-Targets-for-Stroma-Rich-Cancer-Therapies

[5]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231130696214/en/Phenomic-Enters-into-Strategic-Research-Collaboration-with-Astellas-for-Solid-Tumor-Cell-Therapies

[6]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231010485897/en/BioMap-Establishes-a-Strategic-Collaboration-with-Sanofi-to-Co-Develop-AI-Modules-to-Accelerate-Drug-Discovery-for-Biotherapeutics

[7]https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/09/25/2748601/0/en/Valo-Health-and-Novo-Nordisk-to-collaborate-to-discover-and-develop-novel-treatments-for-cardiometabolic-diseases-using-human-data-and-artificial-intelligence.html

[8]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230919210245/en/Merck-Enters-Two-Strategic-Collaborations-to-Strengthen-AI-driven-Drug-Discovery

[9]https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/merck-kgaa-goes-again-ai-expanding-quris-toxicity-prediction-pact-days-after-inking-2-deals

[10]https://endpts.com/astrazeneca-inks-247m-deal-with-generative-ai-shop-absci-to-develop-antibody-drug-for-cancer/

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