AstraZeneca has entered a drug discovery collaboration with AI therapeutics company insitro to develop potential treatments for liver and heart diseases.
Announced on 15 October, the agreement, which will see insitro receive a $40m upfront payment, will focus on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) and cardiomyopathies.
It is estimated that the biotech could earn up to $1.46bn in milestone payments, alongside single-digit royalties on potential global sales.
The collaboration will use insitro’s “Virtual Human” AI platform to investigate the biological causes of both conditions and identify potential drug targets for AstraZeneca to then investigate further.
The platform combines large-scale human and cellular data with AI tools to support target identification and medicine design. insitro will also progress targets nominated by AstraZeneca from discovery through to development candidate stage at which point AstraZeneca will take over.
Both disease areas present challenges because patients with the same diagnosis can have different underlying biology. According to insitro, this variation creates an opportunity to apply machine learning to complex human datasets which will hopefully encourage progress in treatment.
AstraZeneca will lead clinical development, regulatory work and commercialisation, while retaining exclusive worldwide rights to advance selected programmes identified through the partnership.
The companies aim to combine insitro’s ability to identify disease drivers with AstraZeneca’s pharmaceutical development.
Daphne Koller, founder and CEO, insitro, said: “MASH and cardiomyopathies are prevalent, underdiagnosed diseases where high-content data holds immense potential for uncovering disease drivers. By applying AI to these complex datasets, we can unlock greater discovery power and reveal novel genetic insights.
She continued: “Our platform simultaneously deconvolutes disease biology and identifies causal drivers of disease pathologies. Partnering with AstraZeneca allows us to pair our deep biological precision with their pharmaceutical expertise and scale with potential for accelerated advancement of novel programs through development and to patients.”
Sharon Barr, Executive Vice President and Head of BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca, added: “We know that disease biology is incredibly complex and one of the most critical decisions in R&D is selecting the right target. This strategic collaboration underscores our commitment to maximizing the potential of cutting-edge AI to tackle the root cause of disease.”
The agreement adds AstraZeneca to insitro’s growing list of pharmaceutical collaborations, including current deals with Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Gilead.
Founded in 2018, insitro is also developing its own pipeline. The company says programmes targeting genetic regulators of liver fat and fibrosis are expected to enter clinical testing as early as 2027.
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