Absci & Almirall Announce AI Drug Discovery Partnership to Rapidly Develop Novel Treatments for Dermatological Diseases

Absci Corporation and Almirall S.A. recently announced a drug discovery partnership aimed to develop and commercialize 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.

The partnership represents Almirall’s first de novo AI drug collaboration, and it comes only months after Absci announced it could design and validate de novo therapeutic antibodies using its ‘zero-shot’ generative AI. Under the terms of the partnership, Absci will apply its de novo generative AI technology to create and commercialize therapeutic candidates for two dermatological targets. In addition to product royalties, Absci is eligible to receive up to approximately $650 million in upfront fees, R&D, and post-approval milestone payments across the two programs if all milestones are successfully completed.

“Almirall chose Absci because their de novo platform brings truly novel innovation in solving the industry’s most challenging targets facing high unmet medical need,” said Almirall Executive VP of R&D and CSO Dr. Karl Ziegelbauer. “Our partnership underlines Almirall’s commitment to target innovative approaches to help patients suffering from severe skin diseases to achieve their dream of leading a healthy life.”

“Our partnership with Almirall marks an important leap forward for dermatologic drug development and is poised to transform the lives of millions managing skin conditions,” added Absci Founder and CEO Sean McClain. “We believe the collaboration will generate tremendous scientific and technical insights for using AI drug creation to treat chronic inflammatory diseases more broadly. Working with a global leader and visionary in skin disease on this ambitious project will accelerate our journey in creating better biologics for a broad range of diseases affecting millions daily.”

Absci is a generative AI drug creation company that combines AI with scalable wet lab technologies to create better biologics for patients, faster. Our Integrated Drug Creation platform unlocks the potential to accelerate time to clinic and increase the probability of success by simultaneously optimizing multiple drug characteristics important to both development and therapeutic benefit. With the data to learn, the AI to create, and the wet lab to validate, Absci can screen billions of cells per week, allowing it to go from AI-designed antibodies to wet lab-validated candidates in as little as six weeks. Absci’s vision is to deliver breakthrough therapeutics at the click of a button, for everyone. Absci’s headquarters is in Vancouver, WA, its AI Research Lab is in New York City, and its Innovation Center is in Zug, Switzerland. For more information, visit www.absci.com.

Almirall is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on medical dermatology. We collaborate with scientists and healthcare professionals to address patients’ needs through science to improve their lives. Our Noble Purpose is at the core of our work: “Transform the patients’ world by helping them realize their hopes and dreams for a healthy life”. We invest in differentiated and ground-breaking medical dermatology products to bring our innovative solutions to patients in need.

The company, founded in 1944 and headquartered in Barcelona, is publicly traded on the Spanish Stock Exchange (ticker: ALM). Throughout its 79-year history, Almirall has focused intensely on patients’ needs. Almirall has a direct presence in 21 countries and strategic agreements in over 70, with about 1,800 employees. Total revenue in 2022 was €878.5 MM. For more information, visit almirall.com.