By akademiotoelektronik, 03/04/2022

Cancer and immunology: Sanofi relies on artificial intelligence to accelerate

Sanofi prepares for the future. The first French pharmaceutical laboratory announced on Friday the conclusion of a research agreement with Exscientia, the British specialist in drug design using artificial intelligence. The Oxford-based company has developed a “specialized medicine platform” in oncology which should make it possible, thanks to artificial intelligence and the use of biological samples from patients, to design new molecules. She had already collaborated with Sanofi since 2016.

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The new partnership concerns the use of this platform to develop "up to 15 new small molecule candidates in oncology and immunology", indicates Sanofi. Exscientia will lead the design of the small molecule therapeutics and will receive an upfront payment of $100 million. This sum could reach 5.2 billion dollars if the development of drugs in oncology and immunology materializes.

Exscientia will also receive “increasing royalties on sales” in the event of commercialization of a therapeutic product, up to 21%. For its part, Sanofi will be responsible for the preclinical and clinical development of therapeutic molecules, their manufacture and their marketing.

Better targeted and higher quality drugs

The partnership with Exscientia illustrates the growing appetite in the health sector for artificial intelligence as a factor in accelerating the discovery of new drugs. "The partnership aims to transform the way in which the research and development of new small molecules against cancer and immune diseases takes place", explains Frank Nestle, global director of research and chief scientific officer of Sanofi. The use of artificial intelligence will make it possible to reduce research and development (R&D) times and to design “better targeted and higher quality drugs for patients”.

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For Sanofi, which has made oncology one of its priorities, it is also a question of acquiring new tools to work twice as hard. The lab remains the challenger of oncology against the giants of the sector MSD, Roche or Novartis. In November, he entered the capital of Owkin, a young French company which has established itself in artificial intelligence applied to medical research, “to accelerate research and development of new treatments against cancer”. A few weeks later, he got his hands (for 1 billion dollars) on the American biotech specialist in immuno-oncology Amunix Pharmaceuticals.

In addition, in recent months, the pharmaceutical giant has multiplied acquisitions in various fields. In the fall, he bought for 1.6 billion euros Kadmon, an American biotech developing a treatment for people who have undergone a transplant and, for 2.7 billion euros, the American biotech Translate Bio, specializing in messenger RNA.