ISRAEL -CytoReason has extended its multi-year partnership with Pfizer to use CytoReason’s artificial intelligence technology for Pfizer’s drug development programs.

According to the deal, Pfizer will invest US$20m in equity, hold options for licensing the platform and disease models of CytoReason, and provide additional funding for supporting supplementary projects.

With the latest development, the partnership would be worth up to US$110m over the next five years.

In January 2019, the companies entered a collaboration agreement under which Pfizer agreed to use CytoReason’s technology for developing cell-based models of the immune system.

Since the start of the deal, Pfizer has used biological models from CytoReason for its research to increase understanding of the immune system as well as develop new drugs for immune-mediated and immuno-oncology ailments.

Additionally, Pfizer has achieved several insights in its research and development programs, spanning more than 20 diseases, by using the CytoReason platform.

Through the latest research agreement and investment, additional disease models will be developed and high-resolution models will be created, covering various therapeutic areas.

An Israel-based technology company, CytoReason focuses on the development of computational disease models. It obtains real data from pharmaceutical firms and leverages it to mimic human disease models.

The company’s machine learning AI can then be used to explore those models and highlight differences between various patient groups and treatments, potentially identifying more effective routes of attack for new drug candidates.

In doing so, the startup claims its platform can help pharma and biotech companies to speed up their clinical trials, cut drug development costs, and even boost their chances of earning FDA approval.

As competition and the desire to be first-to-market increases, AI can give companies an advantage for the next big breakthrough.

It can also potentially reduce development costs by streamlining the process of researching a drug and putting it through a clinical trial.

With the cost of launching a new drug estimated at US$$2.6 billion pre-market and an additional US$312 million for post-approval research and development, AI provides a prudent way for pharma companies to manage their resources.

So far, since its 2016 founding, CytoReason has linked up with half of the world’s largest pharma companies.

In 2021 alone, it added Sanofi and Merck KGaA to its roster. The Sanofi team-up kicked off in June of last year when the French pharma tapped CytoReason’s platform to improve its understanding of the wide variety of asthma endotypes.

Merck KGaA came aboard a few months later when it pledged to use CytoReason’s AI to analyze phase 1 and 2 findings of an undisclosed immuno-oncology drug, building a map of the patient populations and tumor types in which it may be most effective

In a similar development, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk recently entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft to enhance drug discovery and development using artificial intelligence (AI) models.

This mutually-beneficial collaboration will enable Novo Nordisk to accelerate its research and development efforts, and Microsoft will be able to improve the sophistication of its AI technology.

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