FX.co ★ Bill Gates backs Exscientia to overcome COVID-19 pandemic

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has been seeking ways to overcome the coronavirus pandemic. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested nearly $70 million in the startup Exscientia which is developing drugs for COVID-19.

The largest charity foundation has signed a four-year deal worth $70 million with Exscientia in exchange for a stake in the company. Part of the funding will be used to develop medicines to treat the coronavirus and stop future pandemics from spreading. The main feature of this project is artificial intelligence applied for conducting research. The use of AI should significantly reduce the time for designing pills. According to the developers, apart from drugs for COVID-19, Exscientia is focusing on developing treatments for influenza and virus Nipah, which is transmitted from animals to humans and can cause respiratory problems.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic underscores the urgency to develop safe and effective broad-spectrum drugs to expand our armory against viruses and their variants," Exscientia CEO Andrew Hopkins said. He noted that the company saw great potential for “small molecule therapeutics”. Low molecular substances that can penetrate cells quite rapidly to reach their targets.

This is not Exscientia's first experience of this kind. The company has already designed medicines in collaboration with Japanese drugmaker Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, using artificial intelligence. Now the pills are entering clinical trials. The startup has also independently developed an oncology drug.