Illumina Inks AI Pact With AstraZeneca To Accelerate Drug Target Discovery

Illumina Inc ILMN entered a strategic research collaboration with AstraZeneca plc AZN on drug target discovery. Financial and other details of the partnership were not disclosed.
Under the terms of the agreement, the firms will join forces on artificial intelligence-based genome interpretation and genomic analysis and evaluate whether a combined framework can increase the yield of and confidence in target discovery.
AstraZeneca's Center for Genomics Research will use the combined framework to analyze large, multi-omic datasets in its digital biobank.
Should the project succeed, the companies will "assess opportunities for a long-term partnership."
"Illumina and AstraZeneca are uniquely positioned to improve the efficiency of pharma pipelines by leveraging industry-leading abilities to identify genetic variants that contribute to human disease," Joydeep Goswami, Illumina's chief strategy and corporate development officer and interim CFO, said.
"By identifying genes that show evidence of human disease causality, the combined framework has the potential to prioritize drug candidates with increased likelihood of approval."
Price Action: ILMN shares are down 0.93% at $201.64 on the last check Tuesday.