AQEMIA Inks $140M Small Molecule Deal with Sanofi

Aqemia, a pharmatech company leveraging AI and quantum-inspired physics to accelerate the discovery of small molecule drug candidates, entered into a multi-year research collaboration with Sanofi to discover small molecule drug candidates across several therapeutic areas.

AQEMIA will leverage its unique platform that combines deep physics with generative AI at scale to identify the right chemical molecules for therapeutic targets of interest to Sanofi.

The collaboration will span the drug discovery journey from the identification of the very first hits to the selection of the development candidate. As part of this agreement, AQEMIA will design, working closely with Sanofi, novel drug molecules using its generative AI and deep physics algorithms and platform.

Unlike other AI-driven platform technologies that require chemical experimental data to train on before starting the design phase, AQEMIA will generate such data in-house by performing highly efficient physics-based calculations at scale right from the beginning of each research project. Sanofi will leverage its global research and development expertise to accelerate the development of therapeutic drugs for unmet needs.

AQEMIA will be eligible to potentially receive up to $140 million based on an upfront payment and the successful completion of R&D milestones on a number of specific therapeutic targets. Sanofi will be solely responsible for wet lab research, development, and commercialization activities.

“This new partnership with Aqemia is part of an ongoing story that began with our French teams three years ago,” said Jacques Volckmann, vice-president R&D France Sanofi. “During this period, we have followed with attention and enthusiasm the development of their technology that combines theoretical physics and generative AI. We have been able to concretely assess the interest in some of our research projects during our previous collaborations.”

Maximilien Levesque, CEO and co-founder of AQEMIA, said, “This new collaboration builds on our existing research collaboration with Sanofi for the past two years. This whole new step is about scaling our respective expertise to multiple projects and supporting Sanofi in discovering novel chemical matter at scale with our unique technology – including on difficult projects with limited chemical data upfront and hard issues like selectivity. We are passionately committed to discovering innovative drugs in close alliance with Sanofi’s experts.”