Huadong Medicine and Exscientia enter co-development partnership to accelerate oncology drug discovery through artificial intelligence

Exscientia and Huadong Medicine announced that the companies have entered into a co-development partnership to accelerate the discovery of breakthrough small-molecule therapeutics targeted at innovative approach to oncology. The first project selected in partnership is focused on transcription control of DNA damage response genes, to treat patients with defective DNA damage repair mechanism, leading to high mutation frequency, as seen is in patients with ovarian cancer and breast cancer.

Under this collaboration, the pharmatech Exscientia and Huadong will share responsibilities, with Exscientia applying its advanced Centaur Chemist(TM) AI platform to design new molecules against project specific objectives and Huadong Medicine applying its China based experimental and managerial capabilities to generate data and progress Exscientia’s AI design in a rapid closed-loop cycle.

Huadong Medicine Co., Ltd (SZSE 000963), ranked in the top 10 Chinese pharmaceutical companies by Forbes 2020, with more than 10,000 employees and over US $4 Billion annual revenue. The co- development partnership will support both Huadong’s strategy to introduce new medicines in key markets and Exscientia’s aims to advance AI-designed innovative medicines globally.

“This collaboration marks a key step for Huadong on its journey to become an innovation-based pharmaceutical company. We are pleased to work with Exscientia and are fully committed to make this collaboration a success.”, said Lyu Liang, Chairman of Huadong.

Professor Andrew Hopkins, CEO of Exscientia, said, “We are very excited to enter the partnership with Huadong Medicine. This innovative partnership provides strategic benefits to Huadong Medicine and Exscientia. We see this as the start of a long-term productive relationship to accelerate novel drug discovery and bring benefits to patients around the globe.”