GSK has handed over $45 million upfront to fellow London-based firm Relation to help the pharma identify new targets for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis. The two-stranded collaboration will see Relation use its disease data sets and the biotech’s “Lab-in-the-Loop” platform to find new targets by drawing upon human genetics, single-cell multi-omics from human tissue, assays and machine learning. GSK is handing over $45 million now—including an equity investment of $15 million—with the potential for success-based collaboration payments of up to $63 million and then up to $200 million in milestone payments per target. Relation will take the lead on observational studies to produce two functional disease data sets before using its platform to pinpoint specific targets. GSK will develop and commercialize any resulting drugs, with Relation in line for tiered royalties should these candidates make it to market, according to a Dec. 10 release.

Full story : GSK inks $45 million deal with AI biotech startup, Relation, to identify fibrotic, osteoarthritis targets.