TIDMFIPP
RNS Number : 8314N
Frontier IP Group plc
26 May 2020
AIM: FIPP
26 May 2020
Frontier IP Group Plc
("Frontier IP" or the "Group")
Portfolio news - Exscientia raises $60 million in Series C
financing round led by Novo Holdings
Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual
property, notes that portfolio company Exscientia Limited
("Exscientia" or the "Company"), a world leader in AI-driven drug
discovery, has raised $60 million through a Series C financing
round.
The new capital will be used to expand Exscientia's existing
portfolio and pipeline and to accelerate international expansion,
including in the USA. The Company has demonstrated high growth and
met significant milestones. Earlier this year, it announced that
the first ever drug designed by AI had entered Phase I human
clinical trials in partnership with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma.
The financing round has been led by new investor Novo Holdings
with existing investors - Evotec, Bristol Myers Squibb, and GT
Healthcare Capital Partners (through its LPs) - participating.
Robert Ghenchev, Senior Partner and Head of Novo Growth, joins
Exscientia's board of directors as part of the financing round.
As a result of the financing round, Frontier IP now holds a 2.4
per cent equity stake in Exscientia. Based on the Group's trading
for the year to date, the outlook for Frontier IP for the remainder
of the financial year ending 30 June 2020, including in relation to
the Group's overall portfolio valuation, remains in line with
management expectations following the completion of the Exscientia
financing round.
Exscientia statement in full:
Exscientia raises $60 million in Series C financing round led by
Novo Holdings
26(th) May 2020, Oxford, Copenhagen, and Hamburg
Exscientia, the world leading artificial intelligence (AI) drug
discovery company, today announced it has raised $60 million in a
Series C financing round. The financing round has been led by new
investor Novo Holdings with existing investors - Evotec, Bristol
Myers Squibb, and GT Healthcare Capital Partners (through its LPs)
- participating in the round. Robert Ghenchev, Senior Partner and
Head of Novo Growth, the growth equity arm of Novo Holdings, joins
Exscientia's board of directors as part of the financing round.
The new capital will be used to boldly expand Exscientia's
existing portfolio and pipeline, by launching new projects,
progressing advanced projects to the clinic, and expanding AI
biology as part of Exscientia's full-stack capabilities. In
addition, the company plans to accelerate its international
expansion, including the build-out of its presence in the USA.
Exscientia has demonstrated high growth and significant
milestones in applying AI to small molecule drug discovery. Earlier
this year, it announced that the first ever precision engineered
drug designed using AI had entered Phase I human clinical trials
for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder in partnership
with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma (DSP). This project required less
than 12 months to advance the programme from target to identifying
developmental candidate, just a fraction of the typical average of
4.5 years using conventional research techniques. The company has
been able to consistently deliver similar reductions in
developmental timelines across its portfolio of projects.
Exscientia has continued to expand its portfolio into critical
disease areas following the signing of multi-project partnerships
with Bristol Myers Squibb, Bayer, Rallybio and GT Apeiron. In March
this year, Exscientia announced a joint initiative to identify
COVID-19 antiviral treatments with Diamond Light Source and Scripps
Research and last week it announced a ground-breaking collaboration
with SRI International to combine fully automated synthetic
chemistry with AI.
Robert Ghenchev at Novo Holdings commented "Through its
impressive track record to date, Exscientia has demonstrated the
value of combining deep scientific expertise with cutting-edge
technology capabilities to significantly accelerate drug discovery.
Novo Holdings' investment underscores our interest in supporting
technology companies that enable life science research and
innovation, and our commitment to this area. We see significant
opportunity for the company to further grow its participation in
the drug discovery ecosystem and are excited to work with the
Exscientia team in realising this vision."
"This investment highlights the increasing commitment to the
potential of AI to transform drug discovery and the excitement that
we have garnered around the innovative work we are doing at
Exscientia", said Prof. Andrew Hopkins, CEO and founder of
Exscientia. "We have now demonstrated multiple times that our
platform can accelerate the time between the start of an idea and a
viable new drug candidate for patients in need of treatments, fast
tracking the entire R&D process. We are delighted that Novo
Holdings, one of the world's preeminent life science investors,
recognises the potential of the platform to transform the
pharmaceutical industry."
Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec,
commented: "Evotec was the first strategic and operational investor
in Exscientia and we are extremely pleased it has made such
impressive progress since that time and to be part of this
significant fund raising. Evotec and Exscientia, together, look
forward to realising further synergistic potential in innovative
drug discovery."
Exscientia statement ends
ENQUIRIES
Frontier IP Group Plc T: 020 7332 2338
Neil Crabb, Chief Executive neil@frontierip.co.uk
Andrew Johnson, Communications & Investor M: 07464 546 025
Relations
Company website: www.frontierip.co.uk
Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser) T: 0203 328 5656
Nick Athanas / Nicholas Chambers
N+1 Singer (Broker)
Harry Gooden / George Tzimas
T: 0207 496 3000
Exscientia Limited
Contacts:
Mark Swindells, chief commercial officer
contact@exscientia.ai
Edelman PR exscientia@edelman.com
Stephanie Crisp +44(0) 7583 003 417
stephanie.crisp@edelman.com
NOTES FOR EDITORS
About Exscientia
Exscientia is a global Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug
discovery company and the first to have novel chemical molecules
assessed in a clinical setting. Fusing the power of the original
AI-design with the experience of seasoned drug hunters,
Exscientia's Centaur Chemist(TM) platform enables the discovery of
exquisitely optimised molecules with breakthrough productivity.
In tandem, Exscientia's Centaur Biologist(TM) platform drives
the flexible analysis and prioritisation of discovery targets
across all pharmaceutically relevant disease space. For more
information visit us on www.exscientia.ai or follow us on Twitter
@exscientialtd.
ABOUT NOVO HOLDINGS
Novo Holdings, a Danish private limited liability company wholly
owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, is recognised as a leading
international life science investor with a focus on creating
long-term value. As a life science investor, Novo Holdings provides
seed and venture capital to development-stage companies and takes
significant ownership positions in growth and well-established
companies. Novo Holdings also manages a broad portfolio of
diversified financial assets. For more information, visit
www.novoholdings.dk
ABOUT EVOTEC
Evotec is a drug discovery alliance and development partnership
company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product
approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies,
academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists. We
operate worldwide and our more than 3,000 employees provide the
highest quality stand-alone and integrated drug discovery and
development solutions. We cover all activities from
target-to-clinic to meet the industry's need for innovation and
efficiency in drug discovery and development (EVT Execute).
The Company has established a unique position by assembling
top-class scientific experts and integrating state-of-the-art
technologies as well as substantial experience and expertise in key
therapeutic areas including neuronal diseases, diabetes and
complications of diabetes, pain and inflammation, oncology,
infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, fibrosis, rare diseases
and women's health.
On this basis, Evotec has built a broad and deep pipeline of
approx. 100 co-owned product opportunities at clinical,
pre-clinical and discovery stages (EVT Innovate). Evotec has
established multiple long-term alliances with partners including
Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, CHDI, Novartis,
Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB and others. For
additional information please go to www.evotec.com and follow us on
Twitter @Evotec .
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.
This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the
London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct
Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United
Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution
of this information may apply. For further information, please
contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
END
MSCSEUFWIESSEDI
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May 26, 2020 02:01 ET (06:01 GMT)
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