AI-designed molecule to enter clinical trials

One of the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-designed molecules for immuno-oncology is to enter human clinical trials in an effort to treat patients with advanced solid tumours.

The A2a receptor antagonist has co-developed through a Joint Venture between pharmatech Exscientia and biotech Evotec. The drug candidate was developing using Exscientia's Centaur Chemist AI platform, which utilises AI algorithms to search for optimised drug compounds.

Tumour cells produce high levels of adenosine, a molecule that helps them escape immune system detection by binding to the A2a receptor on cancer fighting T-cells, reducing T-cell ability to eliminate disease. The A2a receptor antagonist is being investigated for its ability to prevent adenosine from binding to the T-cell receptor and potentially promote anti-tumour T-cell activity.

Exscientia and Evotec hope that A2a is able to reduce the systemic side effects of treatment alongside minimal brain exposure to avoid undesired psychological side effects.

This announcement now means that Exscientia has been responsible for the first two AI-designed drugs to enter Phase I testing following the company’s previous announcement in 2020.

Andrew Hopkins, CEO of Exscientia said: “Immuno-oncology medicines are bringing benefit to a range of cancer patients. Our selective A2a receptor antagonist addresses a next-generation immuno-oncology strategy to empower the human immune system by reversing the effects of high adenosine concentrations. We set ambitious therapeutic objectives for this project, especially high selectivity for the A2a receptor and central nervous system (CNS) sparing properties, in order to reduce the likelihood of systemic side effects. Even with these challenging objectives, we were able to discover our candidate molecule within 8 months of project initiation.”