AstraZeneca strikes $40 million AI drug discovery deal with insitro
AZN•AstraZeneca will pay $40 million upfront to insitro under a multi-year deal to discover treatments for liver and heart conditions. insitro could receive up to about $1.46 billion in development and commercial milestones, plus a single-digit percentage of future sales in royalties.
1. Deal terms and focus
The collaboration will focus on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, a severe liver disease, and cardiomyopathies, which affect the heart muscle. insitro will use its AI platform to identify disease biology and advance AstraZeneca-nominated targets to the development-candidate stage; AstraZeneca will run and fund future clinical trials.
2. AI discovery platform
insitro's “Virtual Human” platform combines lab-grown cell models and machine learning. AstraZeneca executive Sharon Barr said pairing AI tools with experienced scientists can help the company test fewer molecules in the lab, reduce guesswork and speed the search for effective medicines.
