Exscientia Continues Expansion with Establishment of a Subsidiary in Japan to Target the Pharmaceutical Market Across Asia

OXFORD, England and OSAKA, Japan, March 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Exscientia, the world-leading Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company announces the establishment of a subsidiary, Exscientia K.K to spearhead its pharmaceutical interests across Asia.

Exscientia K.K. is headquartered in Osaka, Japan, and led by Dr Daisuke Tanaka, an experienced medicinal chemist who previously was Director of the Innovative Chemistry Group at Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma (DSP). Dr Tanaka led DSP's first collaboration with Exscientia, which resulted in the successful delivery by Exscientia to DSP of a completely novel candidate for entry into IND-enabling studies in just 12 months beating the industry standard of 4.5 years.

The establishment of Exscientia K.K. will enable the company to deliver locally focused business development and project support in Japan as well as providing a strategic base that can extend across the broader Asia region, including China, Singapore and South Korea.

Dr Mark Swindells, Chief Operating Officer, said, "We are delighted that Daisuke has agreed to join Exscientia at this exciting time for the company. His combination of technical expertise and business development acumen will be a tremendous asset in growing Exscientia across Asia."

Dr Tanaka added, "When previously collaborating with Exscientia, I learned first-hand how its AI-driven drug discovery approach could deliver both efficiency and quality in a way that is very difficult to achieve with a conventional discovery platform. To be able to represent Exscientia both in the technical and business development domains in the rapidly growing Asia pharmaceutical market is a truly exciting opportunity."

As part of the launch activities and in recognition of the impact that members of Exscientia have had on drug discovery, Prof. Andrew Hopkins, CEO will deliver the Plenary Lecture at the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Symposium on Medicinal Sciences, summarising the 20 years of research work that led to the formation of Exscientia.

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™ 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 and Roche.

Exscientia has its headquarters in Oxford, UK with offices in the UK, USA and Japan. For more information visit www.exscientia.co.uk or follow us on Twitter @exscientialtd

Media enquiries:
Mark Swindells - Chief Operating Officer
contact@exscientia.co.uk