(CercleFinance.com) – The German pharmaceutical group Merck KGaA announced on Wednesday that it had signed two strategic collaboration agreements with a view to accelerating the development of new drugs using artificial intelligence (AI).
The two partnerships, concluded with British companies BenevolentAI and Exscientia, aim to support several candidates in key therapeutic areas such as oncology, neurology and immunology.
‘With the convergence of science, data and AI, we are determined to accelerate the development of truly innovative new candidates and pave the way for medical breakthroughs that were previously unimaginable ‘, explains Danny Bar-Zohar, director of research for Merck’s pharmaceutical branch.
Under the terms of the two agreements, three leading targets were selected, even if other projects could emerge as part of the work, particularly with regard to the discovery of small molecules, specifies the laboratory.
In return, BenevolentAI and Exscientia will each receive initial payments of between $10 and $15 million, not including milestone payments and royalties that they could derive from the clinical progress of the projects and their eventual commercialization.
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