Chinese firm XtalPi is embarking on a strategic collaboration with CK Life Sciences, a member of the CK Hutchison Group. XtalPi and CK Life Sciences will leverage their respective expertise to jointly develop a novel artificial intelligent (AI) tumour vaccine research and development (R&D) platform to improve the discovery and design capabilities of tumour vaccines and accelerate the development of more vaccine types. The goal of this collaboration is to realise precision treatment for patients worldwide.

Currently, there are only two therapeutic tumour vaccines- sipuleucel-T for melanoma and Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) for bladder cancer, as well as preventive tumour vaccines against human papillomavirus infection and hepatitis B infection approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Recently, several other tumour vaccines have entered clinical development and evidence of efficacy has begun to emerge.

Currently, the design and preclinical development process for tumour vaccines is complex and lengthy, hindering the efficiency and success rate of tumour vaccine research and development. Incorporating XtalPi's industry expertise in AI computation and robotic automation, this collaboration aims to build an AI tumour vaccine R&D platform that applies advanced AI algorithms and high-precision molecular modelling to predict and design a variety of tumour vaccines that can activate specific immune responses to kill tumours.