AstraZeneca (AZ) and Absci have entered into a collaboration agreement worth up to $247m to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-designed antibody drug for a specified oncology target.

The partnership will combine AZ’s capabilities in oncology research and development with Absci’s Integrated Drug Creation platform, which the generative AI company says “unlocks the potential to accelerate time to clinic and increase the probability of success by simultaneously optimising multiple drug characteristics important to both development and therapeutic benefit”.

The agreement includes an upfront commitment from AZ as well as research and development funding, milestone payments and royalties on product sales.

Puja Sapra, senior vice president of biologics engineering and oncology targeted delivery at AZ, said: "This collaboration is an exciting opportunity to utilise Absci's de novo AI antibody creation platform to design a potential new antibody therapy in oncology.”

Absci outlines that its approach “overcomes the limits of traditional drug discovery”. The platform generates proprietary data by measuring millions of protein-protein interactions, which is then used to train the company’s AI models and, in later iterations, to validate antibodies designed using the de novo AI models.

Sean McClain, founder and chief executive officer of Absci, said: “AZ is a leader in developing novel treatments in oncology, and we are excited to collaborate with them to design a therapeutic candidate antibody with the potential to improve the lives of cancer patients.”

The partnership comes less than a month after Absci and Almirall announced a drug discovery deal aimed at developing and commercialising AI-designed treatments for dermatological diseases, marking an expansion to Absci’s de novo AI drug creation portfolio into the dermatology space.

The agreement, which is worth over $650m, will see Absci apply its de novo generative AI technology to create and commercialise therapeutic candidates for two dermatological targets.

AZ has also made a series of deals this year. Last month, it entered into an exclusive licence agreement worth almost $420m with Chinese biotech Usynova for global rights to preclinical small molecule drug candidate UA022.

The company also recently entered into an exclusive licence agreement with China’s Eccogene for global rights to an investigational once-daily oral drug for cardiometabolic diseases.

https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/astrazeneca_and_generative_ai_company_absci_enter_$247m_oncology_partnership_1504590