RCS - Frontier IP Group - Exscientia announces joint initiative re COVID-19

Frontier IPAnnouncement

01/04/2020 07:00

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RNS Number : 3234I  Frontier IP Group plc  01 April 2020

RNS Reach

AIM: FIPP

1 April 2020

 

 

Frontier IP Group Plc

("Frontier IP" or the "Group")

 

Portfolio news - Exscientia announces joint initiative to identify COVID-19
drugs with UK government-backed science facility Diamond Light Source and
Scripps Research

 

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual property, is pleased
to note that portfolio company Exscientia ("Exscientia" or the "Company"), a
world leader in AI-driven drug discovery, is to progress compounds that could
rapidly become viable drugs for treating COVID-19 in a joint initiative with
Diamond Light Source and Calibr, a division of Scripps Research (USA).

 

Through the transatlantic alliance, Exscientia has gained access to Calibr's
collection of 15,000 clinically-ready molecules, those which have already been
shown to be safe for use in humans or have passed pre-clinical safety studies.
 

 

Exscientia will start by rapidly screening the entire collection to identify
existing compounds that could be repurposed to tackle COVID-19. In the longer
term, the Company plans to use its AI to design even more effective compounds.

 

Exscientia has been working with Diamond Light Source, the UK's national
synchrotron facility funded by the government, and the University of Oxford
since January 2020 on the project. Frontier IP holds a 3.3 per cent equity
stake in the Company.

 

Frontier IP Chief Executive, Neil Crabb, said: "Exscientia's aim is to use its
AI to discover new, effective drugs quickly and efficiently, and we are
optimistic the Company can make a significant contribution to the global fight
against COVID-19.

 

"Other of our portfolio companies are directly involved in support efforts to
combat COVID-19. These include The Vaccine Group, which is developing animal
vaccines to combat the disease and related coronaviruses to prevent their
future spread from animals into humans, and Elute Intelligence Holdings, which
is using its technology to support scientists needing to sift complex datasets
to identify the most relevant research for their work."

 

 

Exscientia statement in full:

 

Exscientia announces joint initiative to identify COVID-19 drugs with Diamond
Light Source and  Scripps Research

 

 

·        Transatlantic partnership seeks to identify COVID-19
antiviral treatments

·        Exscientia to screen nearly every known approved and
investigational drug - 15,000 clinical molecules - against key COVID-19 drug
targets to progress rapid treatments

 

Exscientia, the leading artificial intelligence (AI) driven drug discovery
company, today announced a joint initiative with Diamond Light Source, the
UK's national synchrotron facility and Calibr, a division of Scripps Research
(USA), to progress compounds that could rapidly become viable drugs for the
rapid treatment of COVID-19.

 

Through this alliance, Exscientia has gained access to Calibr's world's
leading collection of 15,000 clinically-ready molecules. This collection
includes launched drugs, additional compounds that have already been shown to
be safe in humans and promising compounds that have passed pre-clinical safety
studies. The collection, which has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, will be shipped from the Scripps Research in La Jolla, California
to Exscientia, in Oxford, UK.

 

Exscientia will first apply its advanced biosensor platforms to rapidly screen
the complete collection against key viral drug targets of SARS-CoV-2, the
virus responsible for COVID-19. Three prioritised targets include; the 3CL
protease, the NSP12-NSP7-NSP8 RNA polymerase complex (both of which are vital
components for viral replication) and the virus's SPIKE protein, which
interacts with the human cell receptor ACE2 in order to gain entry to human
cells.

 

Dr Martin Redhead, Head of Quantitative Pharmacology at Exscientia, who will
carry out the analysis, commented: "Given the ever expanding scale and rapid
speed at which COVID-19 is spreading, the initial priority is to search for
any existing drug that can be  repurposed to protect the human population.
Then as we move forward we can design superior molecules with our AI-Design
systems to work even more effectively against the virus. The Scripps Research
collection allows us to explore both of these important objectives.

 

Professor Dave Stuart FRS, Director of Life Sciences at Diamond Light Source
and MRC Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford, is
co-ordinating the efforts along with his colleagues, Dr Martin Walsh and Dr
Jonathan Grimes.

 

Prof. Stuart commented: "The drugs we are testing have either been approved by
the FDA for other diseases or have been extensively tested for human safety.
By being able to start with existing high-quality molecules, we can move more
rapidly to clinical trials, and potentially an initial treatment for
patients".

 

The three UK collaborators; Diamond Light Source, Oxford University and
Exscientia have been working together since January, firstly to produce viral
proteins initiate drug screening and then to investigate how anti-viral drugs
at atomic detail in order to provide high-quality seed data for Exscientia's
AI drug design algorithms.

 

Exscientia's mission is to make safer, more sophisticated drugs available to
all - more quickly and efficiently than ever before using it AI drug discovery
platform. At this critical time globally, the company believes that a dual
strategy to first identify opportunities in the existing set of known drugs
and then work on new optimised molecules is an optimal path to start to
protect the human population from this invasive disease.

 

 

Exscientia statement ends

 

 

ENQUIRIES

 

 Frontier IP Group Plc                                                  T: 020 7332 2338
 Neil Crabb, Chief Executive

 Andrew Johnson, Communications & Investor Relations                    M: 07464 546 025

 Company website: www.frontierip.co.uk (http://www.frontierip.co.uk/)
 Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser)                            T: 0203 328 5656
 Nick Athanas / Nicholas Chambers

 Exscientia Limited

 Contacts:

 Edelman PR

                                                                        exscientia@edelman.com (mailto:exscientia@edelman.com)
 Stephanie Crisp                                                        +44(0) 7583003417
 Camille Oster                                                          +44(0) 7812660934

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS

 

 

 

About Exscientia

 

Exscientia is a global Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery
company.  By fusing the power of the original AI with the experience of
seasoned drug hunters, Exscientia's innovative Centaur Chemist™
platform enables breakthrough productivity gains as well as new approaches to
improve drug efficacy.

Novel compounds are automatically designed and prioritised for synthesis by
its AI systems, which rapidly evolve compounds towards the desired candidate
criteria for clinical development.  For more information visit us
on www.exscientia.ai (https://www.exscientia.ai/)  or follow us on
Twitter @exscientialtd (https://twitter.com/exscientialtd) .

ABOUT DIAMOND LIGHT SOURCE

Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron, providing industrial
and academic user communities with access to state-of-the-art analytical tools
to enable world-changing science. Shaped like a huge ring, it works like a
giant microscope, accelerating electrons to near light speeds, to produce a
light 10 billion times brighter than the Sun, which is then directed off into
33 laboratories known as 'beamlines'.

In addition to these, Diamond offer access to several integrated laboratories
including the Electron Bio-imaging Centre (eBIC) and the Electron Physical
Science Imaging Centre (ePSIC). Diamond serves as an agent of change,
addressing 21st century challenges such as disease, clean energy, food
security and more. Since operations started, more than 14,000 researchers from
both academia and industry have used Diamond to conduct experiments, with the
support of approximately 700 world-class staff. More than 9,000 scientific
articles have been published by our users and scientists.

Funded by the UK Government through the Science and Technology Facilities
Council (STFC), and by the Wellcome Trust, Diamond is one of the most advanced
scientific facilities in the world, and its pioneering capabilities are
helping to keep the UK at the forefront of scientific research. For more
information visit us on www.diamond.ac.uk
(https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Home.html)  or follow us on
Twitter @DiamondLightSou (https://twitter.com/DiamondLightSou)

ABOUT CALIBR

Calibr was founded on the principle that the creation of new medicines can be
accelerated by pairing world-class biomedical research with state-of-the-art
drug discovery and development capabilities. Leveraging the unique scientific
framework of Scripps Research, Calibr has created a portfolio of drug
candidates based on Scripps technologies, and is shaping a new paradigm for
advancing non-profit biomedical research to impact patients while re-investing
in further innovative research. For more information visit us
on www.calibr.org (https://www.scripps.edu/science-and-medicine/calibr/)  or
follow us on Twitter @scrippsresearch (https://twitter.com/scrippsresearch) .

ABOUT FRONTIER IP

Frontier IP unites science and commerce by identifying strong intellectual
property and accelerating its development through a range of commercialisation
services. A critical part of the Group's work is involving relevant industry
partners at an early stage of development to ensure technology meets real
world demands and needs.

The Group looks to build and grow a portfolio of equity stakes and licence
income by taking an active involvement in spin-out companies, including
support for fund raising and collaboration with relevant industry partners at
an early stage of development.

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