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AstraZeneca has signed a deal worth up to $5.2bn to work with a Chinese biotech company using AI to develop new treatments for chronic diseases.
The drugmaker will collaborate with CSPC Pharmaceuticals on several drugs including a pill to treat immunological diseases. CSPC will receive $110mn upfront and will be eligible for payments based on development milestones of up to $1.6bn and sales milestones of up to $3.6bn.
Sharon Barr, who leads AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceuticals research and development, said the partnership would support the “rapid discovery of high quality novel therapeutic molecules”.
The deal comes as AstraZeneca increases its investment in China, as it tries to move on from a scandal that led to the detention of its top executive in the country. Chinese authorities have been scrutinising the company’s oncology business and, in October, detained Leon Wang, who oversaw the China business in his former role as executive vice-president of the international region.
AstraZeneca is one of many drugmakers signing deals with Chinese biotechs, often for the rights to develop and sell medicines outside China.
Earlier this year, it announced a plan to invest $2.5bn in the country, including on a new R&D centre and on partnerships with start-ups working on antibodies and vaccines for respiratory and other infectious diseases. In 2023, it acquired the global rights to a next generation obesity drug in a $2bn deal with China’s Eccogene.
CSPC is already working with AstraZeneca on an early stage drug candidate for cardiovascular disease, in an up to $2bn deal announced last year.
The latest deal gives AstraZeneca access to CSPC’s AI platform for discovering and optimising drugs, with the aim of speeding up a time-consuming and laborious process and reducing failure rates.
Like many pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca already uses AI for drug discovery, including to search through huge databases of chemical compounds to find promising candidates that can be developed into treatments. It can also be used to suggest adaptations to existing drugs to make them more effective and cause fewer side effects.
The drugmaker has recently signed a $200mn partnership with US companies Tempus and Pathos AI to build a model to find new cancer drugs, and has been working with partners to use AI to improve clinical trials in oncology and lung cancer screening.
