Andrew Hopkins, Exscientia CEO

Bris­tol My­ers ex­pands Cel­gene-era deal with Ex­sci­en­tia, tak­ing its AI R&D en­gine to the next step

One day af­ter tak­ing a shot on an an­ti-TIG­IT bis­pe­cif­ic from Agenus, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb is still in a deal­mak­ing mood.

For Wednes­day’s chas­er, Bris­tol My­ers is re­turn­ing to a com­pa­ny that had teamed up with Cel­gene be­fore its ac­qui­si­tion in 2019. That biotech is Ex­sci­en­tia, and they’ve scored an ex­pand­ed deal with Bris­tol My­ers to fur­ther build on its ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ties less than a month af­ter a mas­sive Se­ries D fi­nanc­ing.

The up­dat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion calls for “up to” a $50 mil­lion up­front pay­ment to the Ox­ford, UK-based biotech, along with $125 mil­lion in “near to mid-term” mile­stones, the com­pa­nies said in a re­lease. Oth­er mile­stones for reg­u­la­to­ry and com­mer­cial as­pects can bring the to­tal val­ue of the deal past $1.2 bil­lion.

Much like the orig­i­nal deal, the ex­pan­sion will cov­er three new projects, Ex­sci­en­tia CEO An­drew Hop­kins told End­points News. The part­ner­ship al­so al­lows the pair an op­tion to go in­to even fur­ther projects, he added. In­di­ca­tions will cov­er pri­mar­i­ly on­col­o­gy and im­munol­o­gy but can cov­er any dis­ease with­in those um­brel­las.

Over the last few years, AI deals have be­gun grab­bing a big­ger foothold through­out the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try. Sev­er­al biotechs have al­so popped up promis­ing to speed up the drug de­vel­op­ment process through ma­chine learn­ing and oth­er AI-fo­cused mod­els, in­clud­ing play­ers like in­sil­i­co, De­n­ovio and Gen­e­sis.

Bris­tol My­ers has made these types of AI plays be­fore, sign­ing on to work with Con­cer­to HealthAI in March 2019 to do just that. They al­so part­nered with ma­chine-learn­ing start­up In­sitro in Oc­to­ber 2020 to po­ten­tial­ly find new ways to cre­ate drugs for ALS.

And As­traZeneca an­nounced in Feb­ru­ary it added the first tar­get gen­er­at­ed by AI to its port­fo­lio, com­ing out of a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Lon­don-based com­pa­ny, Benev­o­len­tAI. That deal fo­cused on iden­ti­fy­ing and val­i­dat­ing a new way to at­tack chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease.

Ex­sci­en­tia is no stranger to wheel­ing and deal­ing, hav­ing scored sev­er­al ma­jor col­lab­o­ra­tions be­fore its first ma­jor fi­nanc­ing round about a year ago. The biotech net­ted part­ner­ships with a host of Big Phar­mas in­clud­ing Bay­er, Roche, Sanofi and Glax­o­SmithK­line, not lim­it­ing their plat­form to one area: The deals ranged from car­di­ol­o­gy and on­col­o­gy to psy­chi­atric and meta­bol­ic dis­eases.

Those deals al­so fol­lowed a team-up with Sum­it­o­mo Dainip­pon Phar­ma for an ex­per­i­men­tal pill in ob­ses­sive com­pul­sive dis­or­der, which the pair claim was the first AI-de­vel­oped drug to en­ter the clin­ic when it be­gan Phase I in ear­ly 2020.

But back in May 2020, Ex­sci­en­tia be­gan hit­ting the gas in rais­ing cap­i­tal, net­ting a $60 mil­lion Se­ries C to more than dou­ble their pre­vi­ous round from 2018. The Se­ries C was ul­ti­mate­ly ex­pand­ed this past March when Black­Rock pushed its to­tal to $100 mil­lion, and Ex­sci­en­tia quick­ly raised an­oth­er $525 mil­lion in late April — a raise that in­clud­ed a $252 Se­ries D round, plus a $300 mil­lion eq­ui­ty in­vest­ment by Soft­Bank.

“Tech­no­log­i­cal­ly we see our goal is to solve drug de­sign and to then use that tech to then scale how we de­liv­er high-qual­i­ty, pre­ci­sion-en­gi­neered drugs in­to the clin­ic,” Hop­kins told End­points. “The more projects we run, the more our sys­tem learns and the bet­ter it gets. There is a di­rect cor­re­la­tion of learn­ing by do­ing.”

The biotech has al­so con­tin­ued to tout what it says are the first-ever ex­per­i­men­tal drugs to hit the clin­ic. In the vein of its OCD pill, Ex­sci­en­tia said in April that its AI-de­signed mol­e­cule for im­muno-on­col­o­gy is the first such com­pound to reach in-hu­man test­ing in that area as well.

This ar­ti­cle has been up­dat­ed to in­clude com­ment from Ex­sci­en­tia CEO An­drew Hop­kins.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Andy Plump, Takeda R&D chief (Jeff Rumans for Endpoints News)

What kind of PhI­Ib da­ta is worth $4B cash? Take­da’s Andy Plump has some thoughts on that

A few months back, when Takeda caused jaws to drop with its eye-watering $4 billion cash upfront for a mid-stage TYK2 drug from Nimbus, it had already taken a deep dive on the solid Phase IIb data Nimbus had assembled from its dose-ranging study in psoriasis.

Now, it’s rolling that data out, eager to demonstrate what inspired the global biopharma to go long in a neighboring, but new, disease arena for the pipeline. And the most avid students of the numbers will likely be at Bristol Myers Squibb, who will have a multi-year head start on pioneering the TYK2 space with Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) as Takeda makes its lunge for best-in-class status.

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No­vo Nordisk re­mains un­der UK scruti­ny as MHRA con­ducts its own re­view in 'in­cred­i­bly rare' case

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is now reviewing Novo Nordisk’s marketing violation that resulted in its loss of UK trade group membership last week. Novo Nordisk was suspended on Thursday from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) for two years after an investigation by its regulatory arm found the pharma broke its conduct rules.

MHRA said on Tuesday that its review of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) investigation is standard practice. An MHRA spokesperson emphasized in an email to Endpoints News that the situation with Novo Nordisk is “incredibly rare” while also noting ABPI took “swift and proportionate action.”

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Chat­G­PT with phar­ma da­ta de­buts for med­ical meet­ings, be­gin­ning with AACR

What do you get when you combine ChatGPT generative AI technology with specific pharma and clinical datasets? A time-saving tool that can answer questions about medical conference abstracts and clinical findings in seconds in one new application from ZoomRx called FermaGPT.

ZoomRx is debuting a public version of its generative AI product specifically for medical conferences beginning this week for the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting that runs April 14-19.

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FDA in­di­cates will­ing­ness to ap­prove Bio­gen ALS drug de­spite failed PhI­II study

Ahead of Wednesday’s advisory committee hearing to discuss Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen, the FDA appeared open to approving the drug, newly released briefing documents show.

Citing the need for flexibility in a devastating disease like ALS, regulators signaled a willingness to consider greenlighting tofersen based on its effect on a certain protein associated with ALS despite a failed pivotal trial. The documents come after regulatory flexibility was part of the same rationale the agency expressed when approving an ALS drug last September from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, indicating the FDA’s openness to approving new treatments for the disease.

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FDA warns Proc­ter & Gam­ble over NyQuil la­bel's in­gre­di­ent list­ings

The FDA on Tuesday released a warning letter sent earlier this month to the Mason, OH-based site of Procter & Gamble Manufactura, raising questions about the list of ingredients on the label and in the electronic filing.

The warning says that for P&G’s over-the-counter Vicks Nyquil Severe Hot Remedy Cold and Flu Plus Congestion, there’s a “mismatched” list of active ingredients between the labeling and the electronic listing file. The listing file for the active ingredients did not match the active ingredients in the electronic file.

FTC says patent bat­tle over Parkin­son's drug could have 'sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tion­s' for pa­tients

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.

Mar­ket­ingRx roundup: What could a US Tik­Tok ban mean for phar­ma? Pfiz­er, Lil­ly lead phar­ma March Mad­ness ad­ver­tis­ers

Just as pharma marketers finally make moves into TikTok, the threat of a US ban on the social media channel is now looming. Already banned on federal employee phones by an initial Congressional act, more bills and maybe bans are on the way. With rare bipartisan agreement, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would give the US president the power to ban TikTok (although not mentioned by name) and other foreign-owned technology platforms that represent a security threat to the US.

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Vipin Garg, Altimmune CEO

Al­tim­mune’s shares halved af­ter in­ter­im look at PhII weight loss drug da­ta

Altimmune’s attempt to catch up to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs hit an investor snag Tuesday after the biotech shared interim Phase II weight loss data.

The Maryland biotech’s pemvidutide is a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist meant to activate GLP-1 receptors to squash appetite and glucagon to ramp up energy use. The 2.4 mg dose showed a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 9.7% at week 24 of 48, which Jefferies analysts said would be comparable to Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide (Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (Mounjaro).

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