German biotech company BioNTech has reached an agreement to buy British AI startup InstaDeep for up to £562 million.

BioNTech developed Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine and its acquisition of InstaDeep follows a collaboration between the companies which resulted in the creation of an early warning system to predict future variants of the Sars CoV-2 virus.

Last year, BioNTech participated in a £100 million funding round by InstaDeep.

BioNTech recently partnered with the UK government to boost research into vaccines for the development of personalised cancer therapies.

The drugmaker’s chief executive Uğur Şahin said that acquiring InstaDeep would support its ongoing aims of trying to use machine learning to improve the drug discovery process, including the development of bespoke cancer treatments.

“The acquisition of InstaDeep allows us to incorporate the rapidly evolving AI capabilities of the digital world into our technologies, research, drug discovery, manufacturing and deployment processes,” Şahin said. “Our aim is to make BioNTech a technology company where AI is seamlessly integrated into all aspects of our work.”

According to the Financial Times, BioNTech will pay around £362 million in cash while the remaining £200 million of the deal will be in shares.

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