Owkin has announced a new multi-year collaboration with Sanofi focused on the co-development of next-generation AI-powered biopharma agents. The agreement includes a five-year license for K Pro, Owkin’s AI Scientist platform, and represents the latest phase of a partnership that has been in place since 2021.
The two companies initially entered a €90 million strategic partnership centered on oncology target identification and patient subgrouping. The collaboration was subsequently expanded to support drug positioning activities within Sanofi’s immunology pipeline. The newly announced agreement broadens the scope further by embedding AI-driven capabilities more deeply into pharmaceutical research and development workflows.
Under the collaboration, Owkin will lead the end-to-end development of specialized AI agents designed specifically for Sanofi’s research and development needs. These systems are intended to function as intelligent assistants capable of autonomously carrying out complex tasks across drug discovery and development programs. The agents will be deployed through the K Pro platform and are expected to complement Sanofi’s existing agentic AI infrastructure.
K Pro combines multimodal patient data with specialized biological AI systems to support activities across the pharmaceutical value chain. The platform is designed to assist from early-stage discovery through clinical development while also providing competitive intelligence and analytical support intended to enable more precise and informed decision-making.
Commenting on the collaboration, Thomas Clozel, CEO and co-founder of Owkin, said, “Building on our collaboration with Sanofi, this marks a shift toward truly embedded AI.” He added, “Owkin believes that, with K Pro, Sanofi can further harness agentic systems within their own workflows, unlocking the full value of their data to accelerate better decisions across drug development.”
Sanofi highlighted the role of advanced AI technologies in its broader digital strategy. Emmanuel Frenehard, Chief Digital Officer at Sanofi, stated, “Across Sanofi, we are continually investing in frontier AI solutions with the potential to accelerate and improve decision-making throughout the drug development lifecycle.” He added, “By implementing purpose-built agentic systems into our workflows, we aim to empower our teams to operate with greater speed, depth, and confidence as we continue to work to deliver transformative outcomes for patients.”
The initiative also aligns with Owkin’s broader objective of advancing Biological Artificial Superintelligence, which the company believes can help address increasingly complex research and development challenges across the pharmaceutical industry.
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