After Sanofi recruited Exscientia in a €250M deal last May, GSK has taken an interest in the startup and invested in a collaboration of its own.
Artificial intelligence has been carving out a niche for itself in biotech, and Exscientia is fast establishing itself as a key player in the field. In May, the company signed a €250M drug discovery deal with Sanofi; now another pharma, GSK, has signed on as a partner in a separate collaboration to advance 10 projects spanning a range of indications. The milestones for Exscientia could total £33M (€37.6M) if all programs are deemed successes.
While applying computing power to drug discovery is nothing new, only a few companies have focused on it as their core technology. The biggest name in the European arena is BenevolentAI, whose CEO, Jackie Hunter, I recently interviewed about the company’s strategy. Despite its establishment as a leader with its recent purchase of a NVIDIA supercomputer, BenevolentAI seems to have found a competitor in Exscientia, evidenced by pharma’s interest in the startup.
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