Tracker of Pharma AI Drug Discovery Collaborations 👩🚀
Revolutionizing Drug Development
“Evolution tells us where we came from, not where we can go.”
By Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution Is True
AI Startup-Pharma Collaborations Tracker
Updated to June 11, 2024
Sanofi
Sanofi S.A. (Euronext Paris: SAN)
⏩ On May 21, 2024, Sanofi, OpenAI and Formation Bio formed a partnership the latest in a string of life science genAI announcements.
Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk A/S (Nasdaq Copenhagen: NOVO B, NYSE: NVO)
🏏 The foundation behind Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk is funding an Nvidia-backed AI supercomputer project. The Novo Nordisk Foundation chooses Eviden to build “Gefion” in Denmark, one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers.
🏏 On January 2, 2024, Novo Nordisk confirmed that is planning to open an AI research facility in London, UK, as part of a drive to place the technology at the heart of its drug discovery operations.
🏏 On January 4, 2024, Novo Nordisk and Cellarity announced the expansion of their research collaborations that aims to unravel novel biological drivers of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and will leverage Cellarity’s platform to develop a small molecule therapy against this disease.
🏏 On May 9, 2024, Metaphore Biotechnologies announced a collaboration with Novo Nordisk to develop up to two next-generation therapeutics for obesity management. Metaphore is a Flagship-founded biotechnology company designing novel therapeutics by combining ML and molecular mimicry.
🏏 In 2023, Insilico and Novo Nordisk signed a collaboration agreement that will help the Danish pharma identify targets against liver fibrosis. Novo Nordisk will utilize Insilico’s AI target discovery engine, PandaOmics, in conjunction with its own drug research and development expertise, to yield new target hypotheses of interest to Novo Nordisk.
🏏 In 2023, Novo Nordisk partnered with Eleven Therapeutics to identify new molecules that promote the precise delivery of RNA-based therapies. The collaboration will be focused on cardiometabolic diseases. Eleven Therapeutics is developing next-generation RNA therapeutics through the mastery of combinatorial chemistry and AI.
🏏 Novo Nordisk announced a partnership with Valo Health Inc., a company specializing in AI-powered drug discovery and development, for new cardiometabolic drug programs (“Novo Nordisk partners with Valo Health on AI drug discovery”).
Takeda
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, 武田薬品工業 (TYO: 4502, NAG: 4502, FSE: 4502, NYSE: TAK)
AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca plc (AZ) (LSE: AZN, Nasdaq Stockholm: AZN, Nasdaq: AZN)
✔ Nabla Bio Secures $26M Series A Financing and Collaborations with AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and Takeda for Generative Protein Design.
Novartis
Novartis AG (SIX: NOVN, NYSE: NVS)
🐱🏍 On April, 23, 2024, Deciphex & Novartis Partnered on AI-Powered Pathology for Drug Discovery.
🐱🏍 Alphabet’s Isomorphic stacks two new deals with Lilly, Novartis worth nearly $3B ahead of JPM.
Amgen
Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN)
⏺ Amgen is embarking on a groundbreaking venture: Project Freyja. The new initiative will harness the power of an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, to accelerate drug discovery and development through AI-powered insights from one of the world’s largest human datasets.
⏺ On January 10, 2024, NVIDIA partnered with Amgen to build generative AI models for drug discovery.
In addition to drug discovery deals, on March 19, 2024 NVIDIA also announced partnerships with J&J MedTech and GE Healthcare for genAI in MedTech.
⏺ On January 17, 2024, Nvidia and Amgen’s deCode Collaborated to Accelerate Drug Discovery with AI.
⏺ On November 17, 2023, the US-based biotech PostEra partnered with Amgen for a multi-target collaboration in drug discovery. The companies will use PostEra’s AI platform Proton and Amgen’s expertise in drug discovery to progress up to five small molecule programmes. PostEra is using ML to close the Design-Make-Test cycle of Medicinal Chemistry.
⏺ On November 29, 2023, Amgen announced that it is expanding its decade-old collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create generative AI in a bid to increase the manufacturing throughput of pharmaceuticals.
⏺ In January 2022, Amgen partnered with Generate Biomedicines that uses AI and ML to discover new drugs. Generate Biomedicines—existing at the intersection of ML, biological engineering and medicine—is using ML algorithms to generate novel sequences for proteins (antibodies, peptides, enzymes, stealth proteins) that have never been seen in nature, and is a Flagship Pioneering Company.
Boehringer Ingelheim
As of 2018, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, and the largest private one.
➡️ On December 10, 2019, the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim partnered with the UK-based drug technology firm Healx to identify approaches to treat rare neurological disorders. The partners will work to advance Boehringer’s drug discovery programme using Healx’s AI technologies and expertise in rare diseases and pharmacology.
➡️ On April 14, 2020, Boehringer Ingelheim tapped Insilico Medicine to help identify new drug targets through its internal Research Beyond Borders initiative, which is tasked with forming new collaborations outside of the company’s traditional therapeutic areas and geographies.
➡️ On December 16, 2021, Boehringer invested again in AI diagnosis specialist Brainomix. Brainomix raised £16M ($21.5M) that will be used to extend the use of its AI-based medical imaging software for stroke to new therapeutic areas.
➡️ On July 12, 2022, VisionHealth announced a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim to use VisionHealth’s Kata app, which provides therapy support for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Kata app is a certified class 2a medical device that provides inhalation support for people with chronic respiratory diseases.
➡️ In 2022, Celeris Therapeutics—using ML to predict biomolecular interactions and generate new chemical entities by using the Xanthos platform—and Boehringer Ingelheim announced a collaboration to develop next-generation targeted protein degraders. CelerisTx is exploiting cutting-edge ML to design PICs™ or Proximity-inducing compounds, which are a novel class of therapeutic modalities able to hijack naturally occurring biological machines.
➡️ On October 5, 2022, HeartBeat.bio AG entered a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim for the investigation of human cardiac organoids (Cardioids) for high-throughput early safety assessment and drug discovery. HeartBeat.bio is a drug discovery company dedicated to developing a high-throughput human organoid screening platform for cardiac drug discovery.
➡️ On November 23, 2013, PhenomicAI (Canada, 2017)—using advanced ML tools for processing imaging, RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics data to understand the biology of single-cells sitting in complex multi-cell systems—and Boehringer Ingelheim announced a 500M collaboration to utilize Phenomic’s single-cell RNA computing platform, dubbed scTx, to unlock new targets.
➡️ On December 6, 2023, Ten63 Therapeutics—a biotechnology company leveraging proprietary algorithms combining interpretable generative AI and physics-based models to unlock previously undruggable targets—announced a multi-target drug discovery collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim.
➡️ In 2023, RetinAI (Bern, Switzerland, 2017) announced a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim in order to improve patient outcomes in geographic atrophy/GA—a progressive, advanced form of age-related macular degeneration and a leading cause of complete loss of sight, estimated to affect around 5 million people worldwide—by combining RetinAI’s Discovery platform and AI tools with Boehringer Ingelheim’s research in retinal diseases.
RetinAI has also a multi-year collaboration with Novartis (2020).
Roche
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche (SIX: RO)
⚙ In September 2023, genome-scale drug discovery company Orionis Biosciences revealed a multi-year collaboration with Genentech, the US biotech subsidiary of Swiss Roche, to discover novel small molecule medicines for challenging targets in major disease areas, including oncology and neurodegeneration.
⚙ On January 04, 2024, MOMA Therapeutics announced a strategic collaboration and licensing agreement with Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY). This partnership (for 5 years, $66M in upfront cash with potential milestone payments and royalties exceeding US $2 billion) provides Roche with access to MOMA’s proprietary KnowledgeBase platform. MOMA’s KnowledgeBase was built upon the concept that functionally related targets lacking sequence homology still possess three dimensional structural motifs that can be exploited to produce highly impactful therapies.
⚙ GDC-1971 (formerly RLY-1971) designed by Relay Therapeutics to be an oral small molecule, potent and selective inhibitor of the protein tyrosine phosphatase SHP2 that binds and stabilizes SHP2 in its inactive conformation, entered into a worldwide license and collaboration agreement with Genentech.
Merck
Merck & Co., Inc. (Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the United States and Canada) traded as NYSE: MRK
Merck Group (Merck KGaA in Germany) traded as FWB: MRK, FWB: MRKC
📯 On June 4, 2024, Merck KGaA tapped AI-focused biotech for new ADC pact worth $376M. Merck KGaA is hoping to sprout some new oncology and immunology therapeutics with Biolojic Design’s AI-driven drug discovery engine.
📯 Owkin, a French-American biotechnology company that applies AI to drug discovery, development and diagnostics, announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with MSD (trade name of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, N.J., USA) to develop and commercialize AI-powered digital pathology diagnostics for the EU market.
📯 On February 20, 2024, Evaxion Biotech A/S (NASDAQ: EVAX), a clinical-stage TechBio company specializing in developing AI-Immunology™ powered vaccines, announced the successful completion of the initial phases of its vaccine collaboration with MSD. The vaccine development project combines both organizations' unique capabilities and know-how.
Pfizer
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE)
🎲 On April 26, 2024, the Pfizer collaboration with an Austrian research institute led to new AI models for drug discovery.
🎲 On June 05, 2024, Relay Therapeutics Announced Clinical Trial Collaboration with Pfizer to Evaluate Atirmociclib in Combination with RLY-2608. Initial triplet combination of RLY-2608 + atirmociclib + fulvestrant to be evaluated in patients with PI3Kα-mutated HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer planned by end of 2024.
Bristol Myers Squibb
The Bristol-Myers Squibb Company is doing business as Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY)
🔗 On February 13, 2024, VantAI, a company focused on generative AI-enabled drug discovery and Bristol Myers Squibb entered into a strategic collaboration to discover new molecular glues for therapeutic targets of interest. The partnership leverages VantAI's geometric deep learning capabilities with Bristol Myers Squibb’s expertise in targeted protein degradation to discover and develop new small molecule therapeutics.
🔗 On May 28, 2024, Menten AI announced the completion of a previously undisclosed research collaboration and licensing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb applying Menten AI’s platform for optimization of cyclic peptides. Under the research collaboration, Menten AI and Bristol Myers Squibb leveraged Menten AI’s generative AI platform and team’s expertise to optimize the biochemical properties of certain peptide macrocycles. Together, the teams were able to explore a more expansive chemical space and identified new amino acid modifications to improve the desired properties.
🔗 On December 14, 2013, Terray Therapeutics, a biotechnology company integrating scale experimentation and generative AI to improve the speed, cost, and success rate of small molecule drug discovery and development, announced a multi-target collaboration agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb to discover and develop small molecule therapeutics in certain disease areas.
🔗 In 2021, Exscientia, the clinical stage AI-driven pharmatech company, announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. This expanded collaboration has the potential to add to the Bristol Myers Squibb drug pipeline whilst enhancing Exscientia’s portfolio of shared assets.
In 2023, Exscientia Announced First-in-Human Study for Bristol Myers Squibb In-Licensed PKC Theta Inhibitor, EXS4318. Bristol Myers Squibb will oversee the clinical and commercial development and Exscientia is eligible for milestone payments and, if approved, tiered royalties on net product sales.
🔗 In 2022, Owkin announced a multi-year strategic collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb.
GSK
GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) traded as LSE: GSK
✏ On Apr 30, 2024, Genomics plc and GSK established precision medicine collaboration to assess polygenic risk scores in clinical trial design.
Eli Lilly and Company
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY)
♟ On March 14, 2024, Eli Lilly-backed Zephyr AI (combining with AI algorithms to build tools and products for the healthcare industry) secured $111M for precision medicine tech.
♟ On January 7, 2024, Isomorphic inked deals with Eli Lilly and Novartis for drug discovery.
♟ On Dec. 21, 2023, Fauna Bio, a biotechnology company improving human health by leveraging animal genomics, announced a multi-year agreement with Eli Lilly to apply Fauna's Convergence™ AI platform to support preclinical drug discovery efforts in obesity. The two teams will collaborate to identify multiple drug targets.
♟ On May 30, 2023, Eli Lilly and XtalPi inked a $250M deal for AI-powered drug discovery. XtalPi’s drug discovery abilities stem from its Inclusive Digital Drug Discovery and Development, or ID4, platform, which is equipped with hundreds of AI algorithms—encompassing ML, DL and natural language processing approaches—and biochemical, cellular, pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic testing tech.
Ono Pharma
Ono Pharmaceutical Co Ltd (TYO: 4528)
On February 20, 2024, Ono announced that it has entered into a research collaboration agreement with InveniAI® LLC (Guilford, Connecticut, USA), to identify novel therapeutic targets by leveraging cutting-edge InveniAI's AI and ML.
Abbvie
AbbVie Inc (NYSE: ABBV)
On January 10, 2023, AbbVie paid $42M upfront to work with the Anima Biotech on small molecule mRNA drugs against three “undruggable” targets in oncology and immunology. Anima Biotech is advancing mRNA Lightning, which is a novel platform for the discovery of selective small molecule mRNA drugs and their mechanisms of action MoA (for more about MoA), combining high scale phenotypic screening and AI.
On December 6, 2023, AbbVie and BigHat Biosciences announced a research collaboration to discover and develop next-generation therapeutic antibodies in oncology and neuroscience. Working closely with AbbVie, BigHat will utilize its Milliner™ platform, a suite of machine learning technologies integrated with a high-speed wet lab, to guide the design and selection for high quality antibodies for multiple therapeutic targets.
Astellas
Astellas Pharma Inc (TYO: 4503)
On April 22, 2024, Takeda, Astellas and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking (a subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc) Announced a Master Agreement to Establish Joint Venture Company. The new company will be dedicated to the incubation of early drug discovery programs, primarily originating from Japan and toward the creation of innovative therapeutics.
On January 23, 2024, Vivtex Corporation, a biotech company aiming to transform the development of oral biologic therapies for major diseases, announced that it has entered a research collaboration with Astellas. The collaboration is focused on the evaluation of Vivtex’s unique and proprietary GI-ORIS™ (“Gut on a chip” and AI) screening and formulation platform technology to support the development of novel, oral versions of a therapeutic candidate provided by Astellas.
In 2021, Astellas signed an option and licence agreement with Dyno Therapeutics to develop AAV gene therapy vectors for skeletal and cardiac muscle, in order to utilize its CapsidMap platform (which uses AI to rapidly optimize AAV capsids) for delivery across multiple organs, while Astellas will conduct preclinical, clinical and marketing activities and also produce gene therapy product candidates using the capsids.
Bayer
Bayer AG (ETR: BAYN)
On March 14, 2024, Bayer, which recently introduced a new operating model, entered a strategic collaboration with Aignostics, a spin-off from Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, focused on AI-powered approaches with applications in precision oncology drug research and development.
Oregon Therapeutics
On May 06, 2024, Lantern Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: LTRN), a leading AI oncology drug discovery and development company, announced a strategic AI-driven collaboration with French biotechnology company, Oregon Therapeutics to optimize the development of its first-in-class protein disulfide isomerase, PDI, inhibitor drug candidate XCE853 in novel and targeted cancer indications.
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV
On April 04, 2024, Odyssey Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company pioneering next-generation precision medicines, announced it has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, a Johnson & Johnson company, to jointly discover and optimize small molecule medicines against select therapeutic targets.
UCB
UCB SA (EBR: UCB)
On March 15th, 2023, UCB, a global biopharmaceutical company, and Aitia, a leader in the application of Causal AI and “Digital Twins” to discover and develop new drugs, announced an early drug discovery collaboration focused on the discovery and validation of novel drug targets and drug candidates for Huntington’s disease. The collaboration seeks to validate novel drug targets that are causally linked to clinical endpoints in Huntington's disease.
On May 2021, Iktos and UCB, announced a software licensing agreement related to AI-based retrosynthesis analysis and planning tool Spaya™, which will be used to empower synthetic and medicinal chemistry projects for drug design and discovery of new chemical entities within UCB.