Exscientia, which develops and licenses therapies designed with its AI drug discovery platform, raised $305 million by offering 13.9 million ADSs at $22, the high end of the range of $20 to $22. The company offered 0.8 million more ADSs than anticipated. It also raised an additional $160 million in concurrent private placements to SoftBank and the Gates Foundation.
Exscientia states that it is an artificial intelligence-driven pharmatech company that aims to discover, design, and develop the best possible drugs in the fastest and most effective manner. The company has built a complete end-to-end solution of AI and experimental technologies for target identification, drug candidate design, translational models, and patient selection. The company states that it has originated the first three AI-designed precision drug candidates to enter human clinical trials. Its most advanced internally developed candidate, EXS21546, began a Phase 1 trial in December 2020. The other two candidates, which are being developed by its collaboration partner Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, are also currently in Phase 1 trials. Exscientia has designed four additional candidates currently undergoing advanced profiling for submission of INDs; the company has more than 25 active projects in total.
Exscientia plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol EXAI. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, and Barclays acted as joint bookrunners on the deal.
