Illumina In Research Collaboration With AstraZeneca To Accelerate AI-based Drug Target Discovery

(RTTNews) - Illumina, Inc. (ILMN) announced Tuesday a strategic research collaboration with British drug major AstraZeneca plc (AZN.L, AZN) to accelerate drug target discovery by combining their strengths in artificial intelligence (AI) based genome interpretation and genomic analysis techniques along with industry expertise.

The collaboration will evaluate whether a combined framework of these technologies can increase the yield and confidence of target discovery to find promising drugs based on human omics insights.

The collaboration leverages Illumina's next generation of AI-based interpretation tools, PrimateAI and SpliceAI, in combination with AstraZeneca's analysis framework for rare variant genomic discoveries—alongside the latter's own AI tools, including JARVIS and in silico predictors like missense tolerance ratio.

As part of the research collaboration a framework combining the two companies' AI-based tools will be adopted by AstraZeneca's Centre for Genomics Research to analyze large-scale multi-omics data sets in its digital biobank. The research collaboration focuses on the ability of a combined framework to deliver differential performance across a broad range of human diseases. Upon its successful outcome, the two companies will assess opportunities for a long-term partnership.