AI Joins the Fight: Pierre Fabre & Iktos Target Cancer Breakthroughs

CASTRES, France – January 09, 2026 – French pharmaceutical leader Pierre Fabre Laboratories has announced a significant collaboration with Iktos, a global pioneer in artificial intelligence for drug discovery. The partnership aims to leverage Iktos's cutting-edge generative AI platform to identify and develop novel small-molecule drug candidates for a highly valuable but undisclosed target in oncology, signaling a major strategic push to integrate AI into the core of pharmaceutical R&D.

This initiative combines Iktos's prowess in computational design and automated chemistry with Pierre Fabre's deep well of expertise in oncology research, preclinical development, and clinical science. The collaboration represents a powerful fusion of machine intelligence and human scientific experience, a combination both companies believe is essential to accelerate the delivery of innovative therapies to cancer patients worldwide.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but the structure includes an upfront payment to Iktos along with a series of future milestone payments, a standard model for early-stage discovery deals that incentivizes progress and success through the long and arduous drug development pipeline.

A Strategic Bet on an AI-Powered R&D Engine

For Pierre Fabre Laboratories, this partnership is far more than a one-off experiment; it is a cornerstone of a broader corporate vision. The company has explicitly stated its ambition to build a formidable, AI-powered research and development engine. Oncology is the primary focus of this technological investment, accounting for over 60% of its R&D budget and a significant portion of its business development efforts.

"This collaboration with Iktos marks an important milestone in our journey to build an AI-powered R&D engine at Pierre Fabre Laboratories," said Audrey Kauffmann, Head of Data Science and Biometry at Pierre Fabre Medical Care R&D. "By integrating Iktos' generative AI and automated chemistry technologies into our research platforms, we are taking a step toward realizing our data and AI strategy."

This move builds upon the company's already robust precision oncology portfolio, which includes treatments for colorectal, breast, lung, and skin cancers. Pierre Fabre is actively developing targeted therapies like mutant-selective EGFR inhibitors for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the pan-RAF inhibitor exarafenib for RAS/RAF-driven solid tumors. The collaboration with Iktos is designed to feed this pipeline with novel candidates, enhancing the company's ability to tackle complex cancer biology and maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving market.

"Thanks to its well-established expertise in generative AI coupled to automated chemistry, we strongly believe that Iktos will help us in accelerating and derisking the discovery of innovative therapeutics," added Olivier Geneste, Head of Drug Discovery at Pierre Fabre Medical Care R&D.

The Promise of Generative AI in a Race Against Time

The core challenge in drug discovery has always been time and cost. Traditionally, bringing a new drug from initial concept to a preclinical candidate can take an average of four to five years and involve the synthesis and testing of thousands of compounds, most of which fail. This is the paradigm that Iktos and its competitors aim to shatter.

Iktos's platform utilizes generative AI to design novel molecules in silico—within a computer simulation—that are optimized from the start to meet multiple success criteria, such as potency, selectivity, and safety. By predicting which molecular structures are most likely to succeed, the AI drastically narrows the field of candidates that need to be physically synthesized and tested in the lab. This approach not only saves time but also significantly reduces the risk of late-stage failures.

While Iktos's specific success metrics are proprietary, the trend in the AI drug discovery sector is compelling. Other leading companies in the space have reported reducing the preclinical discovery timeline from years to as little as 12 to 18 months. This dramatic acceleration is what makes such partnerships so attractive to established pharmaceutical giants.

"This collaboration exemplifies the powerful complementarity between Iktos' generative AI and automated chemistry technologies and Pierre Fabre's deep scientific and clinical development expertise," noted Yann Gaston-Mathé, Co-founder and CEO of Iktos. He emphasized the joint goal of creating an optimal framework to rapidly and efficiently advance innovative drug candidates.

Targeting Unmet Needs in a Competitive Landscape

While the specific oncology target of the collaboration remains confidential, it is understood to be in an area of high unmet medical need. The field of oncology is rife with challenges that are ripe for AI-driven solutions, including historically "undruggable" proteins, aggressive cancers like triple-negative breast cancer, and the growing problem of drug resistance. AI's ability to explore vast chemical space makes it uniquely suited to finding novel approaches to these stubborn problems.

The partnership also reflects the intensely competitive landscape of modern oncology R&D. The global oncology market is valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and innovation is the key to leadership. Major pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to specialized AI firms to gain an edge. Similar high-profile collaborations, such as Insilico Medicine's partnership with Servier, underscore a clear industry-wide trend: AI is no longer a futuristic concept but a present-day strategic imperative.

By joining forces with Iktos, Pierre Fabre not only gains access to a state-of-the-art technology platform but also positions itself at the forefront of this technological wave. It is a move designed to ensure its pipeline remains robust and capable of addressing the next generation of cancer challenges.

Ultimately, the success of this collaboration will be measured in its ability to translate computational promise into tangible clinical benefit. For the millions of patients and families affected by cancer, the hope is that the fusion of artificial intelligence and human ingenuity will shorten the long road to discovery and deliver more effective treatments, faster than ever before.