Frontier IP PLC (LON:FIPP) shares rose on Thursday as the firm said its investee company Exscientia has reached its first major milestone in its collaboration with drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC (LON:GSK) by delivering a lead molecule identified using artificial intelligence.
The drug candidate will target chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affects 384mln people globally.
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Using the Centaur Chemist AI platform, researchers were able to cut the number of candidate molecules screened when compared with traditional drug discovery methods.
Andy Bell, chief research officer of Exscientia, said: "Our AI platform and approach have advanced significantly over the past few years and have been constantly refined and optimised through real-world projects for our pharma partners.
“With the productivity improvements we are now seeing, we believe that our Centaur Chemist approach is proving itself to be the industry's leading AI-drug discovery platform by achieving far superior results to what conventional discovery techniques have historically delivered."
Frontier IP, which specialises in commercialising university intellectual property, has a 3.32% stake in the drug discovery group.
In afternoon trading, shares in Frontier IP were 3.6% higher at 86p.
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