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RNS Number : 4051M
Frontier IP Group plc
07 January 2019
07 January 2019
Frontier IP Group Plc
("Frontier IP" or the "Group")
Portfolio news - Exscientia raises US$26 million in Series B
funding round and announces AI drug discovery collaboration with
Roche worth up to CHF 67 million
Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising university
intellectual property, is pleased to note the two statements made
today by portfolio company Exscientia Limited ("Exscientia" or the
"Company"), a world leader in artificial intelligence ("AI") driven
drug discovery, announcing:
-- The Company has raised US$26 million in a Series B financing
round to scale up its pipeline and advance selected programmes
towards clinical development. The round includes participation from
new investors Celgene Corporation and specialist healthcare
investor GT Healthcare Capital Partners, and existing investor
Evotec AG.
-- An AI drug discovery collaboration with Roche worth up to CHF
67 million in upfront and research funding, development and
commercial milestone payments. In addition, Exscientia will also
receive tiered royalties on annual net sales of any products
resulting from the collaboration.
The full text of both statements is below. Following the
financing round, Frontier IP now holds a 3.32 per cent. stake in
Exscientia, which is already collaborating with several leading
pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, including GSK, Sanofi
and Evotec.
Frontier IP chief executive officer Neil Crabb said: "Today's
announcements confirm Exscientia's exciting potential. The strong
support for the financing round from major companies in the life
sciences industry and the collaboration with Roche strengthen our
belief it will become one of the leading AI-driven drug discovery
companies in the world."
On participating in the financing round, Dr Rupert Vessey,
President of Research and Early Development at Celgene, said:
"Exscientia has demonstrated that AI in molecular design is here
today. With the global pharmaceutical industry acknowledging the
importance of incorporating AI-driven R&D approaches into their
drug discovery processes, we see a huge growth opportunity ahead.
We believe Exscientia is set to become a global leader in AI-driven
drug discovery and are excited to participate in this investment
round."
On the collaboration with Roche, Professor Andrew Hopkins, chief
executive officer and founder of Exscientia, said: "The application
of AI into early stage drug discovery has the potential to offer
transformational benefits in terms of productivity and quality to
the generation of new medicines. Increasingly, we are seeing in our
own pipeline projects and with our ongoing collaborations, the
success of our AI platform in drug discovery. This new partnership
with Roche demonstrates the value of our AI-driven platform and its
potential to deliver high value assets. We are very pleased to
begin this exciting project with such a respected partner."
The two Exscientia statements:
Exscientia Raises US$26 Million in Series B Financing Round
to
Accelerate Scaling as the Leading AI Drug Discovery Company
New Investors Celgene Corporation and GT Healthcare Capital
Partners join Series A Investor Evotec
Oxford, UK - 7(th) January 2019
Exscientia - the world-leading Artificial Intelligence
(AI)-driven drug discovery company - today announces it has raised
US$26 million in a Series B financing round. This will be used to
scale the company's pipeline and advance selected programmes
towards clinical development. The round included participation from
new investors Celgene Corporation and specialist healthcare
investor GT Healthcare Capital Partners, as well as existing
investor Evotec AG.
Alan Au, Managing Partner of GT Healthcare Capital Partners,
commented: "We are very excited to back Exscientia and partner with
a world-class team to further extend its business, including in
Asia. We have a shared vision to revolutionize traditional drug
development processes and believe Exscientia's unique capabilities
have the potential to deliver well beyond cost-effectiveness and
speed, to first-in-class and best-in-class drugs that benefit
patients in the near future."
Dr Rupert Vessey, President of Research and Early Development at
Celgene, said: "Exscientia has demonstrated that AI in molecular
design is here today. With the global pharmaceutical industry
acknowledging the importance of incorporating AI-driven R&D
approaches into their drug discovery processes, we see a huge
growth opportunity ahead. We believe Exscientia is set to become a
global leader in AI-driven drug discovery and are excited to
participate in this investment round."
Professor Andrew Hopkins, CEO and founder of Exscientia, said:
"This Series B marks a milestone in our development and enables us
to drive the next phase of strong business growth. Over the past 12
months we have substantially expanded our operations and
capabilities to become a full stack AI drug discovery company.
Furthermore, our unique Centaur Chemist(TM) platform allows us to
move rapidly from idea generation to new drug molecules ready for
IND and clinical development. With this new funding Exscientia is
positioned to become the dominant player in AI drug discovery,
driving radical change in R&D productivity. We are excited
Celgene and GT Healthcare have joined with existing investor Evotec
on this exciting journey."
The company has made considerable progress during 2018 and
anticipates its first programmes driven by AI to be IND-ready
within the next 12 months. The speed and capital efficiency
demonstrated by Exscientia is already revolutionising the economics
of small molecule discovery and in the future, this improved
throughput will deliver benefits to patients.
Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, said:
"We continue to be very impressed with the progress Exscientia has
made over the past year. Through our partnership with Exscientia we
have seen first-hand evidence that they can deliver the most
productive drug discovery engine in the industry. This latest
funding will allow Exscientia to apply its platform at scale,
taking advantage of the efficiencies that its AI-driven systems
provide."
Exscientia will use the proceeds of this financing round to grow
its "full stack" AI drug discovery capability to dramatically
expand its pipeline, with a target of establishing an expansive
portfolio of projects, both in-house and with partners by the end
of 2019.
Alex Snow, Executive Chairman of Exscientia, said: "Exscientia
has validated its technology by delivering multiple pre-clinical
drug candidates with unprecedented efficiency. Exscientia's
platform has the potential to bring a generation of new medicines
to the market by offering a technologically and financially
superior approach to drug discovery that will benefit patients. I
am personally very excited to be part of Exscientia's next stage of
development, and to have the backing of such prestigious
investors."
Exscientia were advised by Rothschild & Co on this
transaction.
Exscientia Initiates Sixth AI Drug Discovery Partnership
Exscientia to receive up to CHF 67 million in upfront payments,
research support, and milestone payments in discovery collaboration
with Roche
Oxford, UK - 7(th) January 2019
Exscientia - the world-leading Artificial Intelligence
(AI)-driven drug discovery company - is pleased to announce a drug
discovery collaboration with Roche.
Exscientia will apply its cutting-edge, Centaur Chemist(TM) , AI
drug discovery platform to design pre-clinical drug candidates for
Roche. Roche has the exclusive rights to develop and market the
drug candidates resulting from the collaboration.
Exscientia receives upfront and research funding as well as
pre-clinical, development and commercial milestone payments.
Together, the combined financial reward is worth up to CHF 67
million to Exscientia, plus tiered royalties on the annual net
sales of any products resulting from the collaboration. No further
financial details are disclosed.
Andrew Hopkins, CEO of Exscientia, said: "The application of AI
into early stage drug discovery has the potential to offer
transformational benefits in terms of productivity and quality to
the generation of new medicines. Increasingly, we are seeing in our
own pipeline projects and with our ongoing collaborations, the
success of our AI platform in drug discovery. This new partnership
with Roche demonstrates the value of our AI-driven platform and its
potential to deliver high value assets. We are very pleased to
begin this exciting project with such a respected partner."
Exscientia statements end
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014
ENQUIRIES
Frontier IP Group Plc T: 020 7332 2338
Neil Crabb, Chief Executive
Andrew Johnson, Communications & Investor M: 07464 546 025
Relations
Company website: www.frontierip.co.uk
Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser T: 0203 328 5656
and Broker)
Nick Athanas / Nicholas Chambers (Corporate
Finance)
Amrit Nahal (Equity Sales)
Exscientia Limited: media enquiries
Mark Swindells, Chief Operating Officer contact@exscientia.co.uk
Company website: www.exscientia.co.uk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/exscientialtd
Citigate Dewe Rogerson T: + 44 207 638 9571
Mark Swallow/ Pip Batty / Sylvie Berrebi
ABout EXScIENtiA
Exscientia is at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence
(AI)-driven drug discovery and design. By fusing the power of AI
with the discovery experience of seasoned drug hunters, Exscientia
is the first company to automate drug design, surpassing
conventional approaches.
Exscientia's innovative Centaur Chemist(TM) platform enables
breakthrough productivity gains as well as new approaches to
improve drug efficacy. Novel compounds are automatically designed
and prioritised for synthesis by its AI systems, which rapidly
evolve compounds towards the desired candidate criteria for
clinical development.
Exscientia systems learn from both existing data resources and
experimental data from each design cycle. The principle is similar
to how a human would learn, but the AI process is far more
effective at identifying and assimilating multiple subtle and
complex trends to balance potency, selectivity and pharmacokinetic
criteria.
As a result, the AI-driven process is more likely to achieve the
end goal and to do this more rapidly and efficiently than
traditional human endeavour.
Exscientia is collaborating with several leading pharmaceutical
and life sciences companies, including GSK, Sanofi, Roche and
Evotec.
Exscientia has its headquarters in Oxford, UK with offices in
the UK, USA and Japan.
ABOUT FRONTIER IP
Frontier IP unites science and commerce by identifying strong
intellectual property and accelerating its development through a
range of commercialisation services. A critical part of the Group's
work is involving relevant industry partners at an early stage of
development to ensure technology meets real world demands and
needs.
The Group looks to build and grow a portfolio of equity stakes
and licence income by taking an active involvement in spin-out
companies, including support for fund raising and collaboration
with relevant industry partners at an early stage of
development.
ABOUT CELGENE CORPORATION
Celgene Corporation, headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, is an
integrated global biopharmaceutical company engaged primarily in
the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative
therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases
through next-generation solutions in protein homeostasis,
immuno-oncology, epigenetics, immunology and
neuro-inflammation.
For more information, please visit www.celgene.com
Follow Celgene on Social Media: @Celgene, Pinterest, LinkedIn,
Facebook and YouTube.
ABOUT EVOTEC AG
Evotec is a drug discovery alliance and development partnership
company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product
approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies,
academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists. We
operate worldwide, and our more than 2,400 employees provide the
highest quality stand-alone and integrated drug discovery and
development solutions. We cover all activities from
target-to-clinic to meet the industry's need for innovation and
efficiency in drug discovery and development (EVT Execute). The
Company has established a unique position by assembling top-class
scientific experts and integrating state-of-the-art technologies as
well as substantial experience and expertise in key therapeutic
areas including neuronal diseases, diabetes and complications of
diabetes, pain and inflammation, oncology, infectious diseases,
respiratory diseases and fibrosis. On this basis, Evotec has built
a broad and deep pipeline of approx. 100 co-owned product
opportunities at clinical, pre-clinical and discovery stages (EVT
Innovate).
Evotec has established multiple long-term alliances with
partners including Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene, CHDI,
Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB and others.
For additional information please go to www.evotec.com and
follow us on Twitter @EvotecAG.
ABOUT GT HEALTHCARE CAPITAL PARTNERS
GT Healthcare Capital Partners ("GT") is an Asian based private
investment partnership that specialises in fundamentally-driven
life science investments around the globe that aim to change
technology landscapes.
GT Healthcare strives to help our partners explore and extend
their businesses to the Asian and Chinese markets.
http://www.gthcap.com/
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END
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