AI drug discovery company Exscientia has appointed Dr. Garry Pairaudeau as its new Chief Technology Officer.
Reporting into the CEO, Prof. Andrew Hopkins, he brings further drug hunting expertise into Exscientia’s leadership team.
This appointment comes following a year of high growth for Exscientia who in May announced they had secured $60 million in a Series C financing round.
This funding is being used to expand the company’s existing portfolio and pipeline by launching new projects and expanding AI as part of their full-stack capabilities.
Dr. Pairaudeau joins Exscientia with more than 25 years’ worth of experience in the drug hunting and technology leadership space. Most recently he served as Vice President of Hit Discovery at AstraZeneca and Chair of the Global Chemistry Leaders Network where he was responsible for implementing strategic initiatives and collaborations.
During his time at AstraZeneca, he championed developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning and physics–based computational methods, ultimately leading to the companies ‘Augmented Drug Design’ programme.
He also successfully established an automation facility in Gothenburg, dedicated to synthesis and integrated screening.
“Garry has forged a long-standing impressive career that has combined real-life drug hunting with cutting edge Computational and AI techniques as well as robotics,” said Prof. Hopkins.
“Garry has the rarest of talents of both a deep understanding of the problems of drug discovery and a drive to lead the development of new AI and automation approaches to solve those problems.
“We are delighted that he has joined us to help accelerate our mission to apply effective AI and automation to revolutionise drug discovery.”
Dr. Pairaudeau added: “It is exciting to be joining a company whose committed mission is to use AI and automation to revolutionise drug discovery at a global scale.
“Exscientia’s existing achievements, successfully applying innovative computational approaches to drug discovery, speak for themselves, so I am thrilled to be joining this talented team and I’m looking forward to the challenges that the new year brings.”