SRI International (SRI) has entered a research collaboration with Sanofi, leveraging SRI’s SynFini artificial intelligence (AI)-guided, automated synthetic-chemistry system platform. The collaboration will discover and develop lead candidates in multiple high-profile drug-discovery programs at Sanofi.

SRI’s SynFini platform combines AI and automation to accelerate small molecule drug discovery and development, and thereby bring new drugs to the clinic more quickly and affordably. The platform comprises three components (SynRoute, SynJet and AutoSyn) that work together to automate synthetic route design, reaction screening and optimization (RSO) and production of target molecules.

“The goal of the SynFini platform is to create a new paradigm in the approach to drug discovery,” said Nathan Collins, chief strategy officer of SRI’s Biosciences Division and head of the SynFini program. “We look forward to working with Sanofi in applying our AI-guided automation platform to drive the rapid and efficient discovery of therapeutics for high-profile targets.”

The SRI-Sanofi collaboration will also use SRI’s recently implemented DASL (Deep Adaptive Semantic Logic) AI-guided molecular design tool for multi-parametric optimization in hit-to-lead and lead optimization. Utilizing reasoning-guided deep neural networks, DASL efficiently predicts drug designs from the sparse data sets that are typically available in drug discovery.