PARIS: French healthcare company Sanofi , which has been under pressure to revive its drug pipeline after some setbacks in the COVID-19 vaccine race, announced on Friday a research deal with the company Exscientia to develop new medicines.

The two companies said they would work on developing an artificial-intelligence (AI) driven pipeline of new products in areas such as oncology and immunology.

Exscientia will also receive an upfront cash payment of $100 million with the potential of $5.2 billion in total milestones plus tiered royalties, as part of the deal with Sanofi.