Servier and Aqemia announce the extension of their new-molecule discovery collaboration on an undruggable therapeutic target in immuno-oncology.
This extension follows Servier and Aqemia’s successful partnership program, initiated in December 2021, to accelerate drug candidate discovery in immuno-oncology using artificial intelligence.
“We are thrilled with this new step in our collaboration with Aqemia, which illustrates Servier’s development in the field of artificial intelligence and demonstrates our commitment to immuno-oncology,” said Olivier Nosjean, Director of Open Innovation and Scientific Affairs at Servier.
“We are excited to pursue the collaboration with Servier teams. This extension shows the common willingness to join our forces and expertise to drug this highly difficult target.” says Maximilien Levesque, CEO and co-founder of Aqemia.
Aqemia has successfully employed its unique quantum-physics-inspired artificial intelligence technology to identify innovative, patentable molecules that are experimentally active on an undruggable target in immuno-oncology.
Unlike other AI technologies that require experimental results to train their algorithms for each new target and chemical series, Aqemia generates its own data with quantum-inspired physics, enabling work on particularly innovative and undruggable targets.
Pharma-tech startup Aqemia will continue to use its algorithms to optimize the molecules found collaboratively by both partners, relying on the launchpad platform that the start-up has developed for its own research projects.
The new agreement provides for a new upfront payment as well as payments linked to the successful achievement of research and development milestones by drug candidates identified through the collaboration between Aqemia and Servier.