Frontier IP Group plc Exscientia reaches first major milestone with GSK

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Frontier IP Group plc

04 April 2019

4 April 2019

Frontier IP Group Plc

("Frontier IP" or the "Group")

Portfolio news - Exscientia reaches first major milestone in GSK collaboration

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising university intellectual property, is pleased to note yesterday's announcement from portfolio company Exscientia ("Exscientia" or the "Company) , a world leader in artificial intelligence ("AI") drug discovery, that it has achieved its first major milestone in its collaboration with GSK.

The Company has delivered a lead molecule targeting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a progressive lung disease thought to affect 384 million people globally.

Frontier IP holds a 3.32 per cent stake in the Company.

Exscientia statement in full:

EXSCIENTIA ACHIEVES MOLECULE DISCOVERY MILESTONE AS PART OF GSK COLLABORATION

Oxford, UK, 3rd April 2019: Exscientia, a world-leading Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company - announces today that it has delivered a highly potent in vivo active lead molecule, targeting a novel pathway for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). By delivering the candidate, it has reached the first major milestone in its AI-drug discovery collaboration with GSK.

First selective and potent in vivo active lead molecule to be delivered under Exscientia's AI collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), targeting a key pathway for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

In vivo active lead milestone discovered with 5 cycles and only 85 compounds tested.

COPD is a progressive lung disease that is thought to affect around 384 million people worldwide. The burden of COPD is considerable, both socially and economically, where there is an urgent and unmet medical need for new and more effective treatment options.

The molecule was developed through the application of Exscientia's Centaur Chemist(TM) AI-driven automated drug discovery platform. This approach has delivered a lead molecule with fewer compounds synthesised in comparison to conventional industry benchmarks. The in vivo lead was identified de novo from 85 project compounds and was synthesised and tested within five iterative design and screening cycles.

Andy Bell, Chief Research Officer of Exscientia, said: "Our AI platform and approach have advanced significantly over the past few years and have been constantly refined and optimised through real-world projects for our pharma partners. With the productivity improvements we are now seeing, we believe that our Centaur ChemistTM approach is proving itself to be the industry's leading AI-drug discovery platform by achieving far superior results to what conventional discovery techniques have historically delivered."

Exscientia entered a strategic AI-drug discovery collaboration with GSK, with the aim of combining its AI enabled platform with GSK's long-standing expertise to accelerate the discovery of quality new molecules. Exscientia is learning from the wealth of biological and chemistry data resources to drive its AI algorithms to design novel molecules with exacting product criteria as the objectives.

Exscientia's approach has already proved itself by delivering pre-clinical drug candidate molecules in roughly one-quarter of the time, and at one-quarter of the cost of traditional approaches, within partnerships with a variety of major pharmaceutical companies.

Exscientia statement ends

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ABout EXScIENtiA

Exscientia is at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery and design. By fusing the power of AI with the discovery experience of seasoned drug hunters, Exscientia is the first company to automate drug design, surpassing conventional approaches.

Exscientia's innovative Centaur Chemist(TM) platform enables breakthrough productivity gains as well as new approaches to improve drug efficacy. Novel compounds are automatically designed and prioritised for synthesis by its AI systems, which rapidly evolve compounds towards the desired candidate criteria for clinical development.

Exscientia systems learn from both existing data resources and experimental data from each design cycle. The principle is similar to how a human would learn, but the AI process is far more effective at identifying and assimilating multiple subtle and complex trends to balance potency, selectivity and pharmacokinetic criteria.

As a result, the AI-driven process is more likely to achieve the end goal and to do this more rapidly and efficiently than traditional human endeavour.

Exscientia is collaborating with several leading pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, including GSK, Sanofi, Evotec, Roche and Celgene

Exscientia has its headquarters in Oxford, UK with offices in the UK, USA and Japan. For more information follow us on Linkedin and Twitter @exscientialtd

ABOUT FRONTIER IP

Frontier IP unites science and commerce by identifying strong intellectual property and accelerating its development through a range of commercialisation services. A critical part of the Group's work is involving relevant industry partners at an early stage of development to ensure technology meets real world demands and needs.

The Group looks to build and grow a portfolio of equity stakes and licence income by taking an active involvement in spin-out companies, including support for fund raising and collaboration with relevant industry partners at an early stage of development.

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April 04, 2019 02:01 ET (06:01 GMT)