AstraZeneca Partners with Modella AI to Embed Foundation Models into Oncology R&D

AstraZeneca has entered a multi-year strategic agreement with Modella AI to integrate advanced multimodal foundation models into its oncology research and development pipeline. The partnership is designed to accelerate the interpretation of complex biomedical datasets, with the broader goal of streamlining drug development and enabling more personalised cancer therapies.

Modella’s foundation models — AI systems trained on diverse and large-scale datasets — are increasingly seen as critical tools in the pharmaceutical sector. By handling multiple data types simultaneously, these models support a range of R&D tasks, from predicting treatment responses and automating workflows to identifying targets and discovering novel biomarkers.

“Our state-of-the-art multimodal foundation models provide powerful features from different data types for downstream tasks,” said Jill Stefanelli, CEO of Modella AI. “When integrated with AstraZeneca’s research engine, they will have the potential to accelerate data driven development and enable the development of new AI agents that can automate complex R&D workflows.”

The partnership will see Modella’s technology embedded directly into AstraZeneca’s oncology pipeline, which spans a wide spectrum of modalities including immunotherapies, antibody-drug conjugates, bispecifics, hormone-targeted therapies, radiopharmaceuticals and advanced kinase inhibitors. The objective is to use these AI tools to enhance speed and precision across discovery and development stages.

This collaboration is part of AstraZeneca’s broader push to integrate AI across its operations. In recent months, the company has announced several AI-driven research efforts, including a partnership with CPSC Pharmaceuticals focused on preclinical candidate discovery, and joint ventures with Tempus AI and Pathos AI to develop a multimodal deep learning framework tailored to oncology R&D.

“At AstraZeneca, AI is integrated across every aspect of clinical development,” said Jorge Reis-Filho, chief AI and data scientist of oncology R&D at AstraZeneca. He added, “We believe that combining Modella’s foundation models with AstraZeneca’s proprietary datasets and AI expertise will not only accelerate drug development but also improve the likelihood of clinical success.”

The move underlines the growing role of foundational AI systems in biopharma, as companies seek to gain competitive advantage through faster, more predictive, and scalable R&D operations.

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