Bristol Myers and Insitro Strike Deal for Development of ALS Therapies

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has agreed to a five-year pact with Insitro for the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia treatments.

BMS will pay $50 million upfront and the San Francisco-based firm will be eligible for future milestone payments of an additional $20 million and more than $2 billion in longer-term milestones and royalties.

Under the agreement, Insitro will use its proprietary machine-learning platform to create predictive models to identify potential new therapies.

“We believe that machine learning and data generated by novel experimental platforms offer the opportunity to rethink how we discover and design novel medicines,” BMS said.