French drugmaker Sanofi on Tuesday announced that it has partnered with artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI and tech-driven pharmaceutical firm Formation Bio to build AI-powered software to boost drug development and bring new medicines to patients more efficiently.

The companies will bring together data, software and tuned models to create custom, purpose-built solutions across the drug development lifecycle.

"Next generation, first-of-its-kind AI model customisations will be an important foundation in our efforts to shape the future of drug development for pharma and for the many patients waiting for innovative treatments," Paul Hudson, CEO, Sanofi, said in a statement.

The drugmaker said that it will leverage this collaboration to provide access to proprietary data to develop AI models as it continues on its path to becoming the first biopharma company powered by AI at scale. OpenAI will contribute access to cutting-edge AI capabilities, including the ability to fine-tune models, deep AI expertise and dedicated thought partnership and resources.

"There is massive potential for AI to accelerate drug development. We are excited to collaborate with Sanofi and Formation Bio to help patients and their families by bringing new medicines to market," said Brad Lightcap, COO, OpenAI.

In addition, the French drugmaker mentioned that Formation Bio will provide extensive engineering resources, experience operating at the intersection of pharma and AI, and its tech-driven development platform to design, develop and deploy AI technologies across all aspects of the pharma lifecycle.

"By creating and implementing customised AI agents and models designed for our industry, companies like Sanofi and Formation Bio can begin to scale with unprecedented productivity and transform the pace at which we bring new medicines to patients," Benjamine Liu, Co-Founder & CEO, Formation Bio, said.