Israeli AI startup forges $18m partnership with AstraZeneca for cancer drug trials
As part of the collaboration, drugmaker will use Immunai’s AI model of the immune system and machine learning for clinical decision-making in drug discovery and development
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel.
Israeli-American biotech unicorn Immunai on Thursday secured a $18 million partnership to help the Anglo-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca improve the effectiveness and potential success rates of certain clinical cancer trials.
Immunai, founded in 2018, has developed an AI platform to comprehensively map and decode the human immune system with single-cell biology, machine learning capabilities, and big data computation in order to fuel discoveries of new therapeutics and accelerate drug development.
“Artificial Intelligence is transforming cancer drug discovery and clinical development,” said AstraZeneca chief data scientist IkerHuerga.
Huerga said the drugmaker will collaborate with Immunai to deploy its AI platform for its data-driven R&D strategy and to “glean potential new insights into mechanisms of action of immunotherapies.”
As part of the partnership, AstraZeneca said it will use Immunai’s AI model of the immune system and machine learning capabilities for clinical decision-making, including dose selection, elucidating mechanisms of action, patient responder analysis, and biomarker identification.
“Bringing a drug to market is incredibly challenging, time-consuming and expensive,” said Immunai CEO Noam Solomon. “Through this collaboration with AstraZeneca, we’re excited to leverage our AI-based engine to help make this process more efficient in bringing potential new therapies to patients.”
On average, developing a new drug or finding a potential blockbuster medicine takes billions of dollars over almost a decade because of the lengthy trials and lab work involved in the process. Despite these investments and efforts, over 90 percent of drug candidates in clinical trials fail to gain regulatory approval and make it to market primarily due to lack of efficacy and safety.
Immunai said it has been growing its staff in recent years to 170 employees made up of 85 experts in genomics, machine learning, bioinformatics, immunology, and software engineering. Headquartered in New York City, Immunai has offices in Tel Aviv, Zurich, and Prague.
To date, the firm has raised close to a total of $270 million from backers including Koch Disruptive Technologies, the venture capital firm of Koch; Talos VC; 8VC; Alexandria Venture Investments; Piedmont; and ICON.
Immunai also has more than 30 running partnerships with top-tier Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies and leading academic institutions including Harvard, Stanford, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Baylor College of Medicine.
In recent years, the world’s largest pharma companies have been tapping into AI technologies developed by Israeli startups for drug discovery and development. Last year, CytoReason, an Israeli startup that uses AI to develop computational disease models for drug discovery, secured investment from pharma giant Pfizer.
Back in 2022, Pfizer announced an equity investment of $20 million into the Israeli firm as part of a wider five-year deal worth up to $110 million to license CytoReason’s platform and disease models. The startup is also working with French drugmaker Sanofi, Swiss pharma firms Ferring and Roche, and the UK’s GSK.
