Sanjiv Patel, Relay CEO

In one of their first ever ac­qui­si­tions, Re­lay bets $85M cash on a new AI-based screen­ing ap­proach

Al­though they’ve nev­er been short for cash, Re­lay Ther­a­peu­tics hasn’t been one for ac­qui­si­tions in its 5-year his­to­ry, fo­cus­ing in­stead on de­vel­op­ing its own tools to study how pro­teins move and ad­vanc­ing mol­e­cules off those in­sights.

On Fri­day, though, the Third Rock-spun biotech plunked down $85 mil­lion in cash and an­oth­er $185 mil­lion in mile­stones to ac­quire the small, two-year-old, Google-part­nered ma­chine learn­ing com­pa­ny Ze­bi­AI. The deal will al­low Re­lay to add a crit­i­cal new tech­nol­o­gy to its ear­ly-stage dis­cov­ery tools now that, with three can­di­dates in the clin­ic, they’ve shown those tools can pay off, said CEO San­jiv Pa­tel.

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