Absci and AstraZeneca forge AI partnership to discover cancer treatments

Absci, a frontrunner in generative AI antibody discovery, has partnered with biopharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to leverage AI in the quest for a novel cancer treatment.

This collaboration will capitalise on Absci’s Integrated Drug Creation platform—seamlessly integrating with AstraZeneca’s expertise in oncology, aiming to expedite the discovery of a potentially game-changing cancer therapy.

Under the agreement, Absci will deploy its pioneering generative AI technology to craft a therapeutic candidate antibody tailored for a specific oncology target. The collaboration encompasses an upfront commitment, substantial R&D funding, milestone payments, and royalties on future product sales.

Sean McClain, Founder & CEO of Absci, said: “AstraZeneca 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.”

Absci’s Integrated Drug Creation platform combines generative AI and scalable wet-lab technologies, generating proprietary data by scrutinising millions of protein-protein interactions. This data fuels Absci’s proprietary AI models, facilitating the design of antibodies that are later validated through wet-lab experiments.

This accelerated approach, completing the entire cycle within approximately six weeks, enhances the probability of successful development outcomes for biologic drug candidates.

Puja Sapra, PhD, SVP of Biologics Engineering & Oncology Targeted Delivery at AstraZeneca, commented: “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.”

The announcement follows Absci’s recent publication on the design and validation of de novo antibodies using their state-of-the-art ‘zero-shot’ generative AI model.

The collaboration between Absci and AstraZeneca should further help to demonstrate how AI can be used to revolutionise drug discovery.

(Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash)

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