Exscientia up on AI drug discovery pact with Merck KGaA

Exscientia

20/09/2023 11:30

** U.S.-listed shares of British AI-driven pharma company
Exscientia  EXAI.O  up 16.6% at $5.90 premarket
    ** Company reports AI drug discovery collaboration with
Germany's Merck KGaA  MRCG.DE  for small-molecule drug
candidates in different disease areas, including cancer and
immunology
    ** Three potential first-in-class targets have been
identified as the initial focus of the partnership - EXAI
    ** Under agreement terms, EXAI will receive an upfront cash
payment of $20 mln at initiation for three projects
    ** EXAI also eligible to receive discovery, development,
regulatory and sales-based milestone payments of up to $674 mln
in aggregate, if all milestones for all three initial programmes
are achieved
    ** The $20 mln upfront cash payment is expected to be
reflected in H2 results as cash inflows from collaborations and
recognized as revenue over the duration of the agreement -
Exscientia
    ** As of last close, U.S.-listed EXAI stock down 5.1% YTD

 (Reporting by Pratik Jain in Bengaluru)
 ((Pratik.Jain@thomsonreuters.com;))