REG - Frontier IP Group - Exscientia & Celgene drug discovery collaboration

Frontier IPAnnouncement

21/03/2019 09:15

RNS Number : 5724T
Frontier IP Group plc
21 March 2019
 


 
AIM: FIPP
21 March 2019
 
 
The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR"). With the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.
 
 
 
Frontier IP Group Plc
("Frontier IP" or the "Group")
 
 
Portfolio news - Exscientia and Celgene enter three-year AI drug discovery collaboration to accelerate drug discovery in oncology and autoimmunity
 
 
Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising university intellectual property, is pleased to note today's statement from portfolio company Exscientia ("Exscientia" or the "Company) , a world leader in artificial intelligence ("AI") drug discovery, announcing a three-year partnership with global biopharma company Celgene Corporation.
 
The collaboration to accelerate drug discovery in oncology and autoimmunity includes an initial US$25 million upfront payment to Exscientia. The Company is also eligible to receive substantial milestones based on the clinical, regulatory and commercial success of the programme, and is due to receive tiered royalties on net sales of any product. The full text of Exscientia's statement is below.
 
Frontier IP holds a 3.32 per cent stake in Exscientia.
 
Frontier IP chief executive officer Neil Crabb said: "We're delighted Exscientia continues to make such strong progress. Celgene joins an impressive list of collaboration agreements struck by Exscientia with global pharma groups, building on those already signed with Roche, GSK, Sanofi and Evotec."   
 
 
 
Exscientia statement in full:
 
 
Celgene and Exscientia enter 3-year AI drug discovery collaboration focused
on accelerating drug discovery in oncology and autoimmunity.
 
Oxford, UK, 21 March 2019: Exscientia, a world-leading Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company announced today that it has entered a three-year AI drug discovery partnership with leading biopharma company Celgene, including an initial $25 million upfront payment and eligibility to receive substantial milestones based on the clinical, regulatory and commercial success of the program. In addition, Exscientia is due to receive tiered royalties on net sales on any product resulting from the collaboration. Exscientia will apply its full-stack AI drug discovery capabilities to the execution of the entire project - from gene to the drug candidate.
 
The collaboration will use AI to accelerate the discovery of small molecule therapeutic drug candidates for three therapeutic programmes for Celgene in the areas of oncology and autoimmunity.
 
Exscientia will use its cutting-edge Centaur Chemist™ AI drug discovery platform, which has
demonstrated its unparalleled capabilities on multiple projects and its ability to reduce the timelines by at least three-quarters to discover pre-clinical drug candidates. Applying AI to improve the speed of delivery of new treatments for patients is a key goal of this collaboration.
 
This deal extends Exscientia's list of partnerships with blue chip pharma and biotech companies, with existing collaborations involving Roche, GSK, Sanofi and Evotec, cementing Exscientia's reputation as the partner of choice in the rapidly developing field of AI-driven drug discovery. At the start of this year, the Oxford based Exscientia secured a $26 million Series B investment to expand its capabilities, develop its platform and build its proprietary drug pipeline.
 
Professor Andrew Hopkins, CEO of Exscientia, commented: "We're incredibly proud to collaborate with Celgene and to sign another partnership with a key industry player, reinforcing our place at the forefront of AI drug discovery. Today, patients can wait more than ten years from initial drug discovery to its availability as a treatment. With autoimmune diseases and cancer rates increasing, the pharmaceutical industry's R&D productivity needs to dramatically improve - and technology is a key part of this. Since our pioneering Nature papers in the field, we have been developing our AI platform on the principle that AI combined with human creativity can significantly accelerate the drug discovery process and thus drastically improve access of new drugs to the market. We're excited to work with Celgene to drive this transformational change in new therapeutic areas."
 
"We are tremendously excited to collaborate with such leaders in the development and application of
AI tools to accelerate drug discovery. Exscientia have a proven track record of success in this emergent field, and we believe that reducing the number of iteration cycles in optimizing structure-activity and developability relationships through their platform will very favourably impact our ability to deliver high quality development candidates targeting unmet needs in oncology and autoimmunity" says Dr Lawrence Hamann, Corporate Vice President, Chemistry at Celgene.
 
 
Exscientia statement ends
 
 
 
ENQUIRIES
 




Frontier IP Group Plc


T: 020 7332 2338




Neil Crabb, Chief Executive
Andrew Johnson, Communications & Investor Relations
Company website: www.frontierip.co.uk


 
M: 07464 546 025




Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser and Broker)


T: 0203 328 5656




Nick Athanas / Nicholas Chambers (Corporate Finance)
Amrit Nahal (Equity Sales)


 




 
Exscientia Limited: media enquiries


 




Mark Swindells, Chief Operating Officer
Company website: www.exscientia.co.uk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/exscientialtd


contact@exscientia.co.uk
 
 




 
Edelman


 
 
exscientia@edelman.com
 
 




Marianne Fekene


+44(0) 7810298448




Camille Oster


+44(0) 7812660934




ABout EXScIENtiA
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.
 
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.
 
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 and life sciences companies,
including GSK, Sanofi, Roche and Evotec.
 
Exscientia has its headquarters in Oxford, UK with offices in the UK, USA and Japan. For more information visit us on www.exscientia.co.uk or follow us on Twitter @exscientialtd
 
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.
 
ABOUT CELGENE CORPORATION
Celgene Corporation, headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, is an integrated global biopharmaceutical company engaged primarily in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through next-generation solutions in protein homeostasis, immuno-oncology, epigenetics, immunology and neuro-inflammation.
For more information, please visit www.celgene.com
Follow Celgene on Social Media: @Celgene, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
 
 
 
 
 
 




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