REG - Frontier IP Group - Exscientia announces investment from Evotec <Origin Href="QuoteRef">FIPPG.L</Origin>

Frontier IPAnnouncement

28/09/2017 07:01

RNS Number : 0156S
Frontier IP Group plc
28 September 2017
RNS
AIM: FIPP
28 September 2017
Frontier IP Group Plc
("Frontier IP" or the "Group")
Portfolio News
Exscientia Announces 15 million Minority Evotec AG Investment in Exscientia to Advance AI-driven Drug Discovery
Frontier IP, which specialises in the commercialisation of intellectual property, is pleased to announce that its portfolio company Exscientia Limited ("Exscientia") has today announced that Evotec AG ("Evotec") has made a 15M investment to take a minority stake in Exscientia. The resulting revaluation of the Group's holding in Exscientia will be reflected in the Group's audited final results to 30 June 2017, due to be released in October.
The full text of this announcement is set out below.
} Evotec to invest 15m in Exscientia, A pioneer of ARtificial Intelligence ("AI") in drug discovery 
} new funds will enable exscientia to accelerate growth
} Expansion of existing Partnership to discover Novel immuno-oncology therapeutics
} fIRST EVOTEC Project supported by Recent 75m loan facility from the European Investment Bank
Hamburg, Germany, Dundee, UK: 28 September 2017
Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) and Exscientia Ltd ("Exscientia") today announced that Evotec has made a 15m investment to take a minority stake in Exscientia. Through this investment, Evotec becomes the first strategic shareholder in the UK-based company. Exscientia is focused on Artificial Intelligence ("AI")-driven drug discovery and design. With more than 1,800 scientists, Evotec has one of the largest and leading drug discovery platforms in the industry.
Exscientia and Evotec have cooperated since early 2016 to advance small molecules and bispecific small molecules in immuno-oncology. The ongoing success of this partnership was the basis of this expanded and deepened corporate relationship. Exscientia is the world leader in developing and applying AI approaches specifically to design new and better therapeutic molecules in a faster and more cost-effective manner. Exscientia's approach fuses the power of AI with the discovery experience of seasoned drug hunters and chemistry experts. This investment will enable Exscientia to drive higher value partner programmes and expand discovery on its automated design platform. 
Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, said: "Our investment in Exscientia represents Evotec's single biggest equity placement to date and in, what we feel, is the world leading AI technology company. Working with Exscientia on a joint immuno-oncology project over the past year, we have experienced first-hand how its AI approaches, along with our medicinal chemistry platform, can positively and radically impact drug discovery. We are very excited about the joint potential to leverage AI in chemistry. This investment is also the first time that we can efficiently use our recently awarded 75m loan facility from the European Investment Bank to bring down cost of capital for such an investment."
Commenting on the investment, Dr Andrew Hopkins, Chief Executive Officer of Exscientia, added:"Exscientia and Evotec have built a close relationship over the past year sharing mutual interest in agile innovation. We are delighted that Evotec has made this investment for a minority equity stake, allowing Exscientia to deliver more drug discovery projects in a rapid and capital efficient manner. I'm also delighted that Dr Mario Polywka, Chief Operating Officer of Evotec, will join Exscientia's Board of Directors, allowing us to benefit from his strong operational expertise in growing successful biotech companies."
About Exscientia and AI-driven drug discovery
Exscientia is at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery and design. By fusing the power of AI with the discovery experience of seasoned drug hunters, Exscientia is the first company to automate drug design, surpassing conventional approaches. 
The innovative platform enables breakthrough productivity gains as well as new approaches to improve drug efficacy. Novel compounds prioritised for synthesis by Exscientia's AI systems simultaneously balance potency, selectivity and pharmacokinetic criteria in order to deliver successful experimental outcomes.
By applying a rapid design-make-test cycle, the Exscientia AI system actively learns from the preceding experimental results and rapidly evolves compounds towards the desired candidate criteria. 
Exscientia systems learn from both existing data resources and experimental data from each design cycle. The principle is similar to how a human would learn, but the AI process is far more effective at identifying and assimilating multiple subtle and complex trends to balance potency, selectivity and pharmacokinetic criteria. 
As a result, the AI-driven process is more likely to achieve the end goal and to do this more rapidly and efficiently than traditional human endeavour. 
Exscientia is collaborating with several leading pharmaceutical companies. In addition to Evotec, partners include Sanofi (metabolic disease), Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and Sunovion Pharmaceuticals (CNS) and GSK. 
Exscientia was established as a spinout company from Prof. Andrew Hopkins laboratory at the University of Dundee. 
For further information:
Frontier IP Group Plc
T: 0131 240 1251
Neil Crabb, Chief Executive
Company website:www.frontierip.co.uk



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Lucy Williams



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Notes to Editor:
About Frontier IP Group plc
www.frontierip.co.uk. 
Frontier IP specialises in assisting institutions and companies in the commercialisation and exploitation of their intellectual property. It establishes formal and informal relationships with sources of exploitable IP, principally universities. Its core business is building and growing a portfolio of equity stakes in spin-out companies by taking an active involvement in the commercialisation and funding of these businesses.

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