{"id":282589,"date":"2026-01-13T20:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T20:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282589\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T20:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T20:24:10","slug":"astrazeneca-to-acquire-modella-ai-to-speed-oncology-drug-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282589\/","title":{"rendered":"AstraZeneca to acquire Modella AI to speed oncology drug research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">By Maggie Fick<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 13 (Reuters) &#8211; AstraZeneca has agreed to buy Boston-based Modella AI, the companies said on Tuesday, as the drug industry increases \u200bits use of <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:artificial intelligence;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artificial intelligence<\/a> to accelerate the discovery of new drugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The companies \u200cdid not disclose financial terms. In a press release, Modella AI said its &#8220;foundation models&#8221; and AI agents would \u200cbe integrated into oncology research and development to support clinical development and biomarker discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">&#8220;Oncology drug development is becoming more complex, more data-rich and more time-sensitive,&#8221; said Gabi Raia, Modella AI&#8217;s chief commercial officer, adding that joining AstraZeneca would allow it to deploy its tools in global trials \u2060and clinical settings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">AstraZeneca said that \u200cthis was the first acquisition of an AI firm by a big pharmaceutical company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">In an interview at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, AstraZeneca \u200dChief Financial Officer Aradhana Sarin said the acquisition would &#8220;supercharge&#8221; the company&#8217;s quantitative pathology and biomarker discovery efforts by bringing more data and AI capabilities in-house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The deal was one of a number of pacts between \u200bmajor drug firms and AI companies that were unveiled at the healthcare conference, including \u200ca $1 billion collaboration between <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/NVDA\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:Nvidia;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nvidia<\/a> and Eli Lilly. They plan to build a new research lab using Nvidia&#8217;s latest-generation AI chips.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Modella will accelerate AstraZeneca\u2019s efforts to make pathology more quantitative &#8211; using computers to analyze biopsies for relevant proteins and correlate them with clinical data &#8211; so AstraZeneca can develop \u201chighly targeted biomarkers and then highly targeted therapeutics,\u201d Sarin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The deal is \u2060an expansion of a multi-year collaboration that the companies \u200bunveiled in July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Sarin said that partnership served as a &#8220;test \u200bdrive,&#8221; adding that AstraZeneca ultimately wanted Modella&#8217;s data, foundation models and AI talent in-house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">She said AI tools could be used to more rapidly select \u200dpatients for drug trials, \u2060which could increase the odds of clinical success and cut related costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Separately, while speaking at the conference, Sarin said that 2026 is set to be another catalyst \u2060year for AstraZeneca, with multiple high value late-stage readouts anticipated across therapy areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The company is currently looking to \u200chit a target of $80 billion in annual revenue by 2030.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">(Reporting by Maggie \u200cFick and Siddhi Mahatole; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Maggie Fick SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 13 (Reuters) &#8211; AstraZeneca has agreed to buy Boston-based Modella AI, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,142247,289,290,57015,142248,142249,142250,6930,18,19,17,142246,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-282589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-aradhana-sarin","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-astrazeneca","13":"tag-biomarker-discovery","14":"tag-clinical-data","15":"tag-clinical-development","16":"tag-companies","17":"tag-eire","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-modella","21":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115889665797821421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}