OXFORD, England & BERLIN, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Exscientia plc (Nasdaq: EXAI) today announced a new collaboration with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité) to utilise Exscientia’s AI-driven precision medicine platform in haematological cancers.
Under the collaboration, Charité will evaluate the potential of Exscientia’s precision medicine platform to select better treatments and improve outcomes for patients with haematological cancers. Each patient sample will be prospectively evaluated with a broad panel of marketed drugs, including drugs that may not yet be approved for the indication, to determine a comparative response profile, ex vivo.
“Despite major advances in the treatment of haematological cancers, the mortality rate for patients suffering from these conditions remains high. Following the results of the EXALT-1 trial, we believe that this new collaboration with Exscientia may present an opportunity to continue exploring how to meaningfully improve therapy selection and patient outcomes. Simultaneously, it is imperative that we develop a new generation of therapeutics against unexplored targets and biomarkers to improve patient outcomes, and we believe that our newly established biobank will enable Exscientia to move towards this goal,” said Prof. Ulrich Keller, M.D., Director Medical Department, Division of Haematology and Oncology at Charité.
This collaboration will expand on the results of the EXALT-1 study, which were previously published in the peer reviewed journal Cancer Discovery. EXALT-1 was a first-of-its-kind prospective trial, which demonstrated significantly improved outcomes for late-stage haematological cancer patients using Exscientia's deep learning-based high content functional drug testing platform to guide personalised treatment recommendations as compared to physician’s choice of treatment. A post-hoc analysis published in Blood Cancer Discovery showed that combining this technology with new deep learning advancements leveraging cell-specific features in high-content images had the potential to further improve patient outcomes.
Charité will also establish a biobank of viably cryopreserved blood, bone marrow and lymph node tissues to support further technology development and preclinical research projects at both Exscientia and Charité. Unlike conventional biobanks that typically contain dead specimens, this will contain live human tissue samples and therefore be instrumental for clinical and translational research.
“We are really excited to work with Charité to further advance the development and capabilities of our AI-driven functional precision medicine platform. Following the success of the EXALT-1 trial, we believe that AI-guided treatment has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes, as well as healthcare economics, and we look forward to Charité using this approach in a clinical research setting,” said Professor Andrew Hopkins, D.Phil, Founder and CEO of Exscientia. "Charité’s work will contribute to Exscientia's growing body of evidence supporting our platform's potential in identifying the right treatment for the right patient. The systematic collection of viable tissue will allow us to further develop the technology as well as advance our clinical and future translational research around novel and better drugs as we seek to modernise the way we guide treatment selection for patients.”
About Exscientia
Exscientia is an AI-driven pharmatech company committed to discovering, designing and developing the best possible drugs in the fastest and most effective manner. Exscientia developed the first-ever functional precision oncology platform to successfully guide treatment selection and improve patient outcomes in a prospective interventional clinical study, as well as to progress AI-designed small molecules into the clinical setting. Our internal pipeline is focused on leveraging our precision medicine platform in oncology, while our partnered pipeline broadens our approach to other therapeutic areas. By pioneering a new approach to medicine creation, we believe the best ideas of science can rapidly become the best medicines for patients.
Visit us at https://www.exscientia.ai or follow us on Twitter @exscientiaAI.
About Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin is one of the largest university hospitals in Europe, boasting 3,277 beds and approximately 100 departments and institutes spread across 4 separate campuses. At Charité, the areas of research, teaching and medical care are closely interlinked. With more than 21,000 members of staff employed across its group of companies, the organization is one of the largest employers in Berlin. In 2021 Charité treated 123,793 in- and day case patients, in addition to 682,731 outpatients. Charité recorded a turnover of approximately € 2.3 billion (including external funding and investment grants) and set a new record by securing more than € 215.8 million in external funding. Charité’s Medical Faculty is one of the largest in Germany, educating and training more than 9,000 students across the subjects of medicine, dentistry, health sciences and nursing. Charité also offers 730 training positions across 11 different health care professions, in addition to 111 training positions in a further 8 professions. Within the field of academic medicine, Charité’s priorities are highlighted by its main areas of research focus: infection; inflammation and immunity including COVID-19 research; cardiovascular research and metabolism; neuroscience; oncology; regenerative therapies; and rare diseases and genetics.
Exscientia Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including with respect to the progress of discovery and development of candidate molecules, the development of Exscientia’s technology platform, and the progress and success of Exscientia’s strategic partnership with Charité, including the establishment of Charité’s biobank. Any statement describing Exscientia’s goals, plans, expectations, financial or other projections, intentions or beliefs is a forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk statement. Such statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those related to: the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic could have on the Company’s business, including the scope, progress and expansion of Exscientia’s product development efforts; the initiation, scope and progress of Exscientia’s and its partners’ planned and ongoing pre-clinical studies and clinical trials and ramifications for the cost thereof; clinical, scientific, regulatory and technical developments; the process of discovering, developing and commercialising product candidates that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics; and the endeavour of building a business around such product candidates. In light of these risks and uncertainties, and other risks and uncertainties that are described in the Risk Factors section and other sections of Exscientia’s Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 23, 2022 (File No. 001-40850), and other filings that Exscientia makes with the SEC from time to time (which are available at https://www.sec.gov/), the events and circumstances discussed in such forward-looking statements may not occur, and Exscientia’s actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied thereby. Although Exscientia’s forward-looking statements reflect the good faith judgment of its management, these statements are based only on facts and factors currently known by the Company. As a result, you are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements.