Exscientia and the Gates Foundation expand collaboration to fight pandemics

Pharmatech company Exscientia is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on a four-year project to develop small molecule therapeutics that tackle the current coronavirus pandemic.

The project, which will also look at ways to help prepare for future pandemics, will initially focus on developing broad-spectrum molecules which target coronavirus agents such as SARS-CoV-2, its variants and MERS. Exscientia also hopes to accelerate its lead programme, which targets the main protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2.

The collaboration will expand to develop therapeutics for influenza and Paramyxoviridae ,with the potential to develop additional programmes as identified by the joint team.   

Exscientia has developed an AI-driven platform which enables scientific concepts to be rapidly translated into precision-designed therapeutic candidates, with a goal of increasing probability of success and an accelerated path to the patient.  

“The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic underscores the urgency to develop safe and effective broad-spectrum drugs to expand our armoury against viruses and their variants. We need to fight today’s pandemic but also ensure we are prepared with new drugs to combat viruses with future pandemic potential. We are honoured to work alongside the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance this mission by ensuring accessibility and affordability of these therapeutics globally,” commented Andrew Hopkins, chief executive officer of Exscientia. “We believe that our AI-driven platform can accelerate the creation of better, more effective therapeutics that can address some of the world’s most critical and emerging health risks.” 

"Small molecule therapeutics could provide a superior approach to guard global health," said Denise Barrault, director of Portfolio Management at Exscientia. "Certain targets are prevalent across families of viruses, meaning that potent therapeutics could be broadly effective across multiple virus families. Further, this collaboration will focus on evaluating protein targets that are evolutionarily conserved and are less likely to develop resistance.” 

Earlier this year, Exscientia received a grant from the Gates Foundation to advance its class of novel small molecule inhibitors into a therapeutic candidate for Covid-19.

The recent investment by Gates Foundation was made through its Strategic Investment Fund (SIF) and will see Exscientia receive a $35 million equity investment from the SIF, with the potential for additional grant funding to help advance development candidates through commercialisation.

Exscientia will provide $35 million in matching contributions, through operations and funding for third party activities.