Updated: Exscientia CEO brought down by allegations of inappropriate employee relationships, in blow to AI pioneer

Over the last decade, An­drew Hop­kins emerged as a pub­lic leader of the AI biotech field, jump­ing from a pro­fes­sor at a Scot­tish uni­ver­si­ty to the founder of one of the UK’s biggest biotechs.

On Tues­day, the board of his start­up, Ex­sci­en­tia, fired him. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by an out­side law firm al­leged that Hop­kins had re­la­tion­ships with two em­ploy­ees “that the board de­ter­mined were in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­con­sis­tent with the com­pa­ny’s stan­dards and val­ues,” ac­cord­ing to a reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ing.

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