Sanofi and BioMap Announce Groundbreaking Collaboration to Advance AI-Driven Biologics Discovery

Recently, BioMap announced a breakthrough strategic partnership with Sanofi. The two parties will leverage BioMap's AI platform to jointly develop cutting-edge AI modules for biopharmaceutical R&D.

After the cooperation news came out, Liu Wei, CEO of BioMap, expressed in his friend circle: "The large foundational model for life sciences is the next, or potentially the largest battleground for large models. We firmly believe."

Can Sanofi's bet of over $1 billion "ignite" the next big hit?

Deploy Large Models in China
All In Strategy in Progress

After setbacks with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, Sanofi has shifted its focus to AI companies. In recent years, it has pursued a multi-pronged approach through acquisitions and collaborations, fully deploying AI in drug development.

In November 2021, Sanofi collaborated with Owkin on the development of new therapies for four types of cancer, with a potential value of $270 million; in January 2022, it invested $5.2 billion to partner with Exscientia to use AI to shorten the R&D time for 15 new drugs; in March 2022, it partnered with Adagene for a $2.5 billion collaboration to design mono- and bispecific antibodies; in August 2022, it collaborated with Atomwise on multi-target research; and in November 2022, it partnered with Insilico Medicine for $1.2 billion to develop candidate drugs for innovative targets.

On June 13, 2023, Sanofi made an "all-in" move, announcing its full commitment to artificial intelligence and data science to accelerate breakthroughs for patients. The company set its goal to become the first pharmaceutical company massively driven by artificial intelligence. Sanofi is launching plai, an AI platform co-developed with AI platform company Aily Labs, on a large scale. Plai provides real-time, responsive data interaction and an unprecedented 360-degree comprehensive view covering all of Sanofi's activities.

Although this collaboration with BioMap is not the largest investment in Sanofi's AI pharmaceuticals strategy, it is highly significant. Unlike previous collaborations, this partnership between Sanofi and BioMap uses model development as a milestone. It marks the first collaboration in the life sciences industry based on a foundational large model and represents a bold attempt at a new business model for AI + pharmaceuticals.

According to publicly available information, BioMap is China's first innovative drug discovery platform driven by a biological computing engine, founded by Baidu founder Robin Li in 2020. As an AI-driven pharmaceutical company newly established three years ago, BioMap has its unique characteristics.

Traditional artificial intelligence methods require a large amount of labeled data to make accurate predictions. However, in the life sciences, labeled data is often in short supply. But BioMap's foundational model revolutionizes artificial intelligence in biology by enabling a large model trained on ubiquitous unlabeled data to inform multiple downstream task models. This approach allows for superior predictions from limited data across a range of therapeutic areas, including immunology, neurology, oncology, and rare diseases.

Sanofi's collaboration with BioMap undoubtedly demonstrates Sanofi’s commitment to becoming the first large-scale AI-driven pharmaceutical company. The next step will involve joint efforts to create advanced AI models and large protein language models, which will make biologics design and multi-parameter optimization possible.

A New Era of AI-Driven Drug Discovery
Multiple pharmaceutical companies are at the forefront of the times.

Speaking of the current热潮, AI technology must be among them. In recent years, there have been numerous high-profile collaborations in the application of AI to pharmaceutical research, especially with multinational pharmaceutical companies纷纷布局其中.

In 2020, the AI pharmaceuticals industry also entered a period of rapid development, and in 2021, transactions in the AI technology field entered an explosive phase. Major companies such as Takeda, BMS, Sanofi, Astellas, Roche, and Amgen were involved in high-value significant collaborations, with the potential value of these few major deals reaching up to 18.5 billion US dollars.

Although China started relatively late, AI pharmaceutical companies such as Insilico Medicine and XtalPi have also rushed into the market, striving to gain a share in the AI blue ocean market.

Sanofi is undoubtedly a pioneer in the AI pharmaceuticals era, fully integrating AI technology into drug research and development practices. In addition to integrating AI technology, acquisitions and collaborations are also ways to enter the field, but how long can the road of AI pharmaceuticals be?

As of now in China, there are no AI pharmaceutical companies listed. The first mover is Insilico Medicine, which officially submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on June 27, 2023. It has gained significant attention and activity through frequent collaborations with Fosun Pharma, Sanofi, and Exelixis in recent years.

But whether it can successfully reach the shore is not only eagerly awaited by Insilico Medicine, but also a target closely watched by thousands of AI pharmaceuticals.

References:

"Buy Models or Pipelines: Global Pharmaceutical Companies Embrace AI Large Models in Progress" - Medical AI Gold Rush

Editor: Mu Mian

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