Absci, a data-first generative AI drug-creation company, is partnering with AMD, a semiconductor company, to deploy AMD Instinct accelerators and ROCm software to power vital AI drug-discovery workloads, as well as Absci's advanced De Novo antibody-design models.
In addition, AMD is making a $20 million investment in Absci. The investment will be structured as a private investment in public equity.
The aim of the strategic partnership is to back up Absci’s mission of creating better biologics for patients faster using optimized AI solutions for complex biological modeling that offer exceptional performance, reduced infrastructure costs and faster innovation cycles.
"At Absci, we are always looking for ways to push the boundaries of what's possible in drug discovery," Sean McClain, founder and CEO of Absci, said in a statement.
"This partnership with AMD gives us the unique advantage of working closely with a partner that is deeply committed to supporting our needs while providing the most efficient, innovative AI solutions available."
McClain added that AMD high-performance computers enable the company to further its development of next-generation antibody therapeutics.
Mark Papermaster, executive vice president and chief technology officer at AMD, said that Absci is at the forefront of AI-driven drug discovery and is proud to partner with AMD to help further accelerate breakthroughs in therapeutics and transform how biologic drugs are developed.
"Absci's groundbreaking work with AI drug discovery is a perfect fit for AMD high-performance computing solutions and software, designed for the most demanding AI workloads," Papermaster said in a statement.
THE LARGER TREND
In 2023, Absci announced a $247 million partnership with pharma giant AstraZeneca that focuses on expediting the discovery of novel cancer treatments with the help of genAI technology.
The project leveraged Absci's Integrated Drug Creation platform, which combines scalable wet lab technologies with AI and facilitates optimization of multiple drug features pivotal for therapeutic advantages and AstraZeneca's oncology research and development knowledge. The aim of the collaboration was to utilize Absci's De Novo "zero-shot" AI models that result in new, improved antibody therapies against cancer.
That same year, Absci and Almirall, a global biopharmaceutical company focused on medical dermatology, entered into a drug discovery partnership aimed at developing and commercializing AI-designed therapeutics to fight chronic and debilitating dermatological diseases.
The partnership combines Absci’s Integrated Drug Creation platform with Almirall’s dermatological expertise with the goal of delivering life-changing medicines to patients, marking another step forward in AI drug creation.
Absci and M2GEN, an oncology bioinformatics company, also announced a partnership to create new cancer medicines and bring them to market at speed. Absci’s generative AI drug creation platform will tap into M2GEN’s clinical and molecular data set, ORIEN AVATAR (AVATAR), to accelerate the creation of therapeutics for a range of malignancies and patient profiles, bringing AI drug creation to the fight against cancer.