EXSCIENTIA
9.4.2021 07:32:05 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
Exscientia, a leading artificial intelligence (AI)-driven pharmatech company, today announced the first AI-designed molecule for immuno-oncology to enter human clinical trials. The A2a receptor antagonist, which is in development for adult patients with advanced solid tumours, was co-invented and developed through a Joint Venture between Exscientia and Evotec, including application of Exscientia’s next generation 3-D evolutionary AI-design platform as part of Centaur Chemist® . The drug candidate has potential for best-in-class characteristics, with high selectivity for the target receptor, bringing together potential benefits of reduced systemic sides effects as well as minimal brain exposure to avoid undesired psychological side effects. Preclinical data related to this project will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting to be held 9-14 April, 2021.
With this announcement, the company’s AI technologies and drug-hunting expertise are now responsible for the first two AI-designed drugs to enter Phase I testing, following on from Exscientia’s previous announcement in 2020.1
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.”
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.2 Exscientia’s AI-designed 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.
ENDS
About Exscientia
Exscientia is an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven pharmatech committed to discovering and designing the best possible medicines in the fastest and most effective manner. Exscientia is the first company to progress AI-designed small molecules into the clinical setting and repeatedly demonstrate the ability of AI to transform the how drugs are created.
Drug design is precision engineering at the molecular scale. Exscientia has built dedicated AI systems that efficiently learn from the widest range of data and consistently reapply enhanced knowledge through iterations of design. Because Exscientia’s AI platform learns more effectively and rapidly than human-led efforts alone, candidate molecules satisfying complex therapeutic requirements are created with revolutionary efficiency. Exscientia believes that designing better drugs, faster, will allow the best ideas of science to rapidly become the best medicines for patients.
For more information visit us on www.exscientia.ai or follow us on Twitter @exscientiaAI .
1 Exscientia. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and Exscientia Joint Development New Drug Candidate Created Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Begins Clinical Trial. Available at: https://www.exscientia.ai/news-insights/sumitomo-dainippon-pharma-and-exscientia-joint-development Last accessed: April 2021.
2 Vigano, S., Alatzoglou, D., Irving, M., Ménétrier-Caux, C., Caux, C., Romero, P. and Coukos, G., 2019. Targeting adenosine in cancer immunotherapy to enhance T-cell function. Frontiers in immunology , 10 , p.925.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210408005918/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
TetraMem Announces 22nm Multi-Level RRAM Analog In-Memory Computing SoC Milestone16.5.2026 10:43:00 CEST | Press release
TetraMem Inc., a Silicon Valley–based semiconductor company developing analog in-memory computing (IMC) solutions, today announced the successful tape-out, manufacturing, and initial silicon validation of its MLX200 platform, a 22nm multi-level RRAM-based analog IMC system-on-chip (SoC). This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260516556464/en/ Photograph of the MLX200 chip with a five-cent coin for size reference The achievement marks a significant step toward the commercialization of analog computing architectures based on emerging non-volatile memory technologies, addressing the growing challenges of data movement, power consumption, and thermal constraints in modern AI systems. As AI workloads continue to scale, system performance is increasingly constrained by the cost of moving data between memory and compute units. Analog in-memory computing offers a fundamentally different approach by performing computation dir
STARTEEPO Invest Announces 5% Stake in Xerox Holdings Corporation15.5.2026 18:15:00 CEST | Press release
STARTEEPO Invest (“STARTEEPO”), an alternative investment fund focused on public equity opportunities, today announced that it has acquired a significant ownership position in Xerox Holdings Corporation (“Xerox” or the “Company”). This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260515594020/en/ As of the date of this release, STARTEEPO and its affiliates beneficially owns 6.6 million shares of Xerox (excluding options), representing approximately 5.05% of the Company’s outstanding common stock. STARTEEPO has filed a Schedule 13D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) providing additional details regarding its investment. Investment Perspective STARTEEPO believes that Xerox represents an interesting investment opportunity supported by a combination of balance sheet initiatives, ongoing operational improvements, and its position within a changing and consolidating industry. In STARTEEPO’s view, the Company
NTT DATA Announces Intent to Acquire WinWire to Scale Enterprise AI Adoption and Accelerate Industry Transformation with Microsoft15.5.2026 16:00:00 CEST | Press release
Accelerates AI‑driven transformation through expanded agentic AI and data engineering capabilities that underpin NTT DATA’s AI strategy Adds 1,000 Azure engineers and AI specialists to scale cloud and AI delivery capabilities Advances NTT DATA’s North America leadership position, scaling industry aligned AI led innovation across its cloud services and Microsoft Business Unit Builds on NTT DATA’s position as the fastest-growing Microsoft GSI partner, accelerating co-innovation in enterprise AI NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business and IT services, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire WinWire,an award-winning Microsoft partner specializing in Agentic AI, AI on Azure, data engineering and cloud-native development as foundational capabilities for enterprise AI. The acquisition strengthens NTT DATA’s position as a trusted partner to help organizations move beyond experimentation to operationalize AI at scale. The acquisition further advances NTT DATA’s
NTT DATA Announces Intent to Acquire WinWire to Scale Enterprise AI Adoption and Accelerate Industry Transformation with Microsoft15.5.2026 16:00:00 CEST | Press release
Accelerates AI‑driven transformation through expanded agentic AI and data engineering capabilities that underpin NTT DATA’s AI strategy Adds 1,000 Azure engineers and AI specialists to scale cloud and AI delivery capabilities Advances NTT DATA’s North America leadership position, scaling industry aligned AI led innovation across its cloud services and Microsoft Business Unit Builds on NTT DATA’s position as the fastest-growing Microsoft GSI partner, accelerating co-innovation in enterprise AI NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business and IT services, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire WinWire,an award-winning Microsoft partner specializing in Agentic AI, AI on Azure, data engineering and cloud-native development as foundational capabilities for enterprise AI. The acquisition strengthens NTT DATA’s position as a trusted partner to help organizations move beyond experimentation to operationalize AI at scale. The acquisition further advances NTT DATA’s
Experian Expands Agent Trust Partner Ecosystem with Akamai to Advance Trusted AI Driven Commerce15.5.2026 15:00:00 CEST | Press release
Collaboration strengthens secure, scalable agentic commerce and supports emerging Know Your Agent standards Experian today announced that Akamai Technologies has joined its growing partner ecosystem, designed to further advance secure, trusted AI driven commerce through the Experian Agent Trust™ framework, alongside partner Skyfire supporting emerging payment innovation. As AI agents begin to search, decide, and transact autonomously, they introduce a fundamental challenge for businesses: how to trust an action when it is no longer directly initiated by a human. Without a verified connection between humans and AI agents, autonomous commerce introduces new risks in fraud, misrepresentation, and unauthorized transactions. Experian Agent Trust is designed to address this challenge by establishing identity, accountability, and trust in agent driven interactions. “Trust, security, and performance must scale alongside the growing role of AI agents in digital commerce,” said Kathleen Peters,
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom