
AstraZeneca taps two more targets from its AI partner, again in CKD and IPF
AstraZeneca is doubling down in chronic kidney disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis by selecting one target for each of those via its AI-powered partner.
Originally teamed up in 2019, the Big Pharma has now selected a total of five targets via its UK counterpart, BenevolentAI. The tally includes two targets in CKD and three in IPF, a lung-scarring and breathing-constriction disease with two approved drugs — Boehringer Ingelheim’s Ofev and Roche’s Esbriet, both given the nod in 2014 — and a recent generic entry.
The two new targets trigger two milestone payments to the London-based startup, BenevolentAI said Thursday morning. AstraZeneca EVP of BioPharma R&D, Mene Pangalos, said the new targets are “novel rare variants,” in a statement.
The news comes nine months after the pair upped the collaboration with two more disease areas — heart failure and systemic lupus erythematosus — in a three-year extension to the original tie-up. Novartis also enlisted the help of BenevolentAI in 2019 to work on clinical-stage oncology assets.
BenevolentAI also touts identifying Eli Lilly and Incyte’s JAK inhibitor baricitinib as a treatment candidate for Covid-19. The atopic dermatitis and hair loss drug ended up getting emergency use authorization and then approval in May of this year for adults with Covid-19 who need supplemental oxygen, ventilation or ECMO.
In-house work is also part of BenevolentAI’s approach, with an internal pipeline that comprises a Phase I atopic dermatitis asset and multiple preclinical candidates across ulcerative colitis, ALS and glioblastoma multiforme. An antiviral, oncology assets, Parkinson’s disease candidates and NASH hopefuls sit further down the pipeline.
A company that went public via a SPAC, BenevolentAI is one of many upstarts claiming to upend drug discovery via an artificial intelligence model that it touts as a start-from-scratch approach as compared to its competitors’ reverse-engineering route.
“It’s not a right and wrong situation … it’s a really multidimensional picture of human biology across the commonalities of human disease,” CSO Anne Phelan previously told Endpoints News. “For example, depending on the cell type that’s affected, the graph could end up connecting to Alzheimer’s or diabetes, where underlying physiology could be really quite similar.”
The list of AI shops includes Exscientia, Atomwise, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, insitro, XtalPi, Deep Genomics, Insilico and, among others, CytoReason, which boosted its Pfizer partnership by five years in a September deal.