The second $5 billion BD has arrived! AZ officially announces cooperation with CSPC PHARMA, another AI pharmaceutical venture

On June 13, AstraZeneca and CSPC PHARMA reached a strategic research collaboration. The two parties will jointly collaborate on high-priority targets, aiming to advance the discovery and development of novel oral candidate drugs for the treatment of various diseases.

According to the agreement, CSPC PHARMA will receive a $110 million upfront payment and is eligible for up to $1.62 billion in potential development milestone payments and up to $3.6 billion in sales milestone payments, as well as potential single-digit royalties based on annual net sales of the products. AstraZeneca will have the right to exclusively license, develop, and commercialize the candidate drugs identified through this agreement on a global scale.

AstraZeneca and CSPC PHARMA will discover and develop preclinical candidate drugs targeting multiple targets, which are expected to treat chronic diseases, including a preclinical small molecule oral therapy for immune diseases.

The research will be conducted by CSPC PHARMA in Shijiazhuang and will utilize its AI-driven dual-engine efficient drug discovery platform. This platform employs AI technology to analyze the binding patterns of target proteins with existing compound molecules, conducting targeted optimization to screen for small molecules that are efficient and have good development potential.

Sharon Barr, Executive Vice President and Head of Biopharmaceutical R&D at AstraZeneca, stated: "This strategic research collaboration underscores our commitment to innovation in tackling chronic diseases that affect over 2 billion people globally. Establishing strong partnerships allows us to leverage complementary scientific expertise to support the rapid discovery of high-quality novel therapeutic drug molecules, thereby delivering the next generation of medicines."

In the field of AI drug development, the two parties had previously reached a collaboration.

In October 2024, AstraZeneca entered into a development collaboration for the preclinical innovative small molecule lipoprotein (a) (Lp(a)) inhibitor YS2302018 with CSPC PHARMA, with a $100 million upfront payment. This compound was discovered by CSPC PHARMA's AI-driven small molecule drug design platform.

Notably, this is the second BD transaction publicly announced by CSPC PHARMA since June began.

On May 30, CSPC PHARMA announced that it was in deep discussions with several independent third parties regarding three potential licensing collaborations, which can be summarized in three aspects:

• Multiple products, including EGFR ADC, involving three potential transactions;

• The potential upfront payments, milestone payments, and commercialization shares for each transaction are approximately $5 billion;

• One of the transactions is already in the later stages and is expected to be completed within a month.

Following the news, the secondary market responded clearly: the intraday increase once exceeded 12%.

On June 6, the first transaction was finalized. CSPC PHARMA's subsidiary, New Stone Bio, granted global exclusive development and commercialization rights for two novel antibodies to South Korea's LigaChem Biosciences for the development of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) targeting solid tumors such as lung cancer and colorectal cancer. However, the specific amount was not disclosed.

Recently, 3SBio reached a staggering $1.25 billion upfront payment BD with Pfizer for its dual antibody; Hansoh Pharmaceutical's GLP-1/GIP dual-target agonist reached an overseas rights cooperation agreement with Regeneron for an $8 million upfront payment CSPC PHARMA forecasts three BD projects, and China National Pharmaceutical Group also revealed that multiple products have received cooperation intentions. This year, at least one heavyweight out-license deal will be finalized... Chinese innovative drugs are once again ushering in a wave of going global.

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