By Colin Kellaher

Shares of Exscientia PLC rose sharply in premarket trading Friday after the pharmatech company inked a research collaboration and license agreement potentially worth billions of dollars with France's Sanofi SA.

The companies said they plan to use Exscientia's AI-based capabilities and personalized medicine platform to develop up to 15 novel small molecule candidates across oncology and immunology.

Oxford, U.K.-based Exscientia will receive an upfront cash payment of $100 million and is eligible for up to $5.2 billion in milestones payments, along with royalties on sales of products resulting from the collaboration.

Exscientia shares, which closed Thursday at $18.19, were recently up 14.3% to $20.79 in premarket trading.

Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-07-22 0613ET