AZ taps Chinese firm CSPC's AI acumen in $5.2bn+ alliance

AstraZeneca has forged a wide-ranging collaboration with Chinese biotech CSPC Pharma that will focus on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to find new medicines across a range of diseases.

The deal includes an upfront payment to CSPC of $110 million, up to $1.62 billion in potential development milestone payments, and up to $3.6 billion in sales milestones, driving the total value of the alliance north of $5.2 billion.

Hong Kong-registered CSPC said the alliance will use its AI platform, which analyses the binding patterns of target proteins with existing compound molecules and conducts targeted optimisation of potential drug candidates, to select "highly effective small molecules with excellent developability" against various indications.

The lead programme is focusing on a preclinical-stage candidate with a proposed application in the area of immunological diseases, according to CSPC, which has several small-molecule drugs in early-stage clinical development in-house, including candidates targeting VEGFR/CSF1R, FGFR4, CDK2/4/6, and PRMT5 for solid tumours.

The new alliance comes after AZ agreed a $2 billion licensing deal with CSPC last year focused on a small-molecule lipoprotein(a)-targeted drug candidate for cardiovascular diseases.

Research on behalf of AZ will be carried out by CSPC at its facility in Shijiazhuang City in Hebei Province, according to the partners. Under the terms of the agreement, the UK pharma group has opt-in rights for exclusive worldwide licenses to develop and commercialise any drugs that arise from the alliance.

"This strategic research collaboration underscores our commitment to innovation to tackle chronic diseases, which impact over two billion people globally," commented Sharon Barr, AZ's head of biopharma R&D.

"Forming strong collaborations allows us to leverage our complementary scientific expertise to support the rapid discovery of high-quality novel therapeutic molecules to deliver the next-generation medicines," she added.

The announcement builds on AZ's announcement earlier this year that it will invest $2.5 billion in an R&D facility in China, the world's second-largest pharma market. The new unit in Beijing – the sixth for the company worldwide and second in China after Shanghai – will focus on "cutting-edge biology and AI science."

Other partnerships recently signed by AZ to bolster its position in AI include one with Immunai designed to support clinical trials of cancer immunotherapies, a second with Qure.ai on the development of algorithms to interpret radiology images, and a third with Tempus AI and Pathos focused on the creation of a generative AI (GenAI) model for oncology.