辉瑞正与机器学习生物技术公司Insitro Inc.合作，交易金额最高可达18.6亿美元，旨在帮助英国制药公司寻找用于肝脏和心脏的新药。
Plc is collaborating with machine learning biotech Insitro Inc. in a deal worth as much as $1.86 billion intended to help the British drugmaker find new medicines for the liver and heart.
阿斯利康周四表示，将预付4000万美元。Insitro将利用自身数据以及阿斯利康的数据，以更好地理解脂肪肝病和心肌病的病因。如果该方法奏效，该生物技术公司还可能获得最高达14.6亿美元的额外付款，以及潜在的销售提成。
Astra will make an upfront payment of $40 million, it said Thursday. Insitro will use its own data as well as Astra’s to help better understand the causes of a fatty liver condition and diseases of the heart muscle. If the approach delivers, the biotech could get additional payments worth as much as $1.46 billion as well as potential sales royalties.
此次交易标志着制药行业最新押注：人工智能有助于快速发现新药靶点。Insitro此前已宣布与礼来公司及百时美施贵宝公司达成发现合作。这家加州科技生物公司的投资者包括安德森·霍罗威茨、贝莱德和淡马锡。
The deal marks the latest pharma industry bet that AI can help swiftly discover new drug targets. Insitro has previously announced discovery deals with Eli Lilly & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The California techbio company counts Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock and Temasek among its investors.
Insitro利用其AI平台搜索临床数据和疾病模型。其目标是深入理解导致医疗状况的根本原因，从而提高治疗成功的可能性。
Insitro uses its AI platform to search both clinical data and models of disease. It aims to reach a new understanding of the causes underlying medical conditions to raise the chance of therapeutic success.
“选择我们的新靶点是我们所做的最困难的事情之一，”阿斯利康执行副总裁兼生物制药研发负责人Sharon Barr在接受采访时表示。“这是我们深入研究这些复杂疾病、在理解生物学方面提供更精准方案的机会。”阿斯利康已有多种心脏药物以及针对代谢性疾病的实验药物管线。尽管如此，该公司在此领域近期仍遇挫折：今年早些时候，一种名为Wainua的治疗药物未能对心肌病显示疗效。去年，它暂停了正在中期试验中测试的一种药物的开发，该药物针对的是一种称为MASH的脂肪肝病。
“Choosing our new targets is one of the hardest things that we do,” Sharon Barr, Astra’s executive vice president and head of biopharmaceuticals R&D, said in an interview. “This is a chance for us to really dig into those complex diseases and offer more precision in terms of understanding the biology.”Astra already has several heart medicines and a pipeline of experimental drugs targeting metabolic ailments. Still, it has experienced recent failures in this area, with a treatment called Wainua not showing efficacy for a disease of the heart muscle earlier this year. Last year, it halted the development of a drug in mid-stage trials being tested for the fatty liver condition known by its acronym MASH.
首席执行官Pascal Soriot希望在心脏和代谢领域扩张，最终能够将一些这些药物结合使用。
Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot is looking to expand in the heart and metabolism field and eventually be able to combine some of these medicines.
Insitro表示，使其与众不同的是它试图理解疾病的生物学。Insitro首席执行官达芙妮·科勒在接受采访时说：“绝大多数AI药物发现公司关注的是在目标被确定之后发生了什么。”
Insitro says what sets it apart is trying to understand the biology of a disease. “The vast majority of AI drug-discovery companies focus on what happened after a target has been identified,” Daphne Koller, the company’s CEO, said in an interview.
相反，Insitro关注的是更早的过程。她说：“在这个行业里，我们最缺乏的东西是对疾病生物学的深入理解，以及在何处进行干预才能真正产生影响、真正推动进展。”
Instead, Insitro looks at the earlier process. “The thing that we lack the most in this industry is a deep understanding of the biology of disease and where to intervene in order to shift and really move the needle,” she said.
在与阿斯利康的合作中，Insitro在MASH方面的工作已经取得了显著进展，并且对药物靶点能够快速出现抱有希望。科勒表示，心血管研究可能需要稍长一些时间。
With the Astra deal, Insitro is already well advanced in its work on MASH and is hopeful that drug targets will emerge quickly. The cardiovascular research will likely take a little longer, according to Koller.