AstraZeneca has invested heavily in AI, primarily through collaborations, including an up to $5.3 billion partnership with China’s CSPC Pharmaceutical in June.
AstraZeneca is adding to its roster of AI-focused partners, this time looking to California-based Algen Biotechnologies to advance novel therapies in immunology.
The companies did not provide an exact financial breakdown of the deal, announced Monday, only revealing that the total consideration could reach up to $555 million, including upfront and near-term payments, plus development, regulatory and commercial milestones. The partners likewise did not reveal what diseases they will prioritize, noting only that they will work on “therapies against a defined set of targets” in immunology.
Algen spun out of Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna’s lab at the University of California, Berkley to work on its AlgenBrain platform—the centerpiece of Monday’s deal—which, according to Monday’s release, captures “billions” of RNA changes in humans to elucidate “causal links between gene regulation and disease progression.” The biotech then uses those data, along with machine learning, to identify novel therapeutic targets that “may reverse disease processes.” Doudna is an adviser to Algen.
“We are using AI and Machine Learning to enhance the discovery of new targets,” Jim Weatherall, AstraZeneca’s chief data scientist of Biopharmaceuticals R&D, said in a statement, noting that leveraging such technologies “will help to create more effective medicines.”
“Algen’s platform offers a powerful approach to achieving this,” he added.
Aside from Algen, AstraZeneca in recent years has heavily invested in its AI capabilities, largely through partnerships. “We know that we’re not an AI company but that we have to partner,” Arun Krishna, the pharma’s head of U.S. oncology for lung cancer, told BioSpace in June.
That month, for instance, AstraZeneca fronted $110 million to link up with China’s CSPC Pharmaceutical to gain access to its AI capabilities for novel oral therapies targeting several chronic diseases. The pharma also put up to $1.62 billion on the line in development milestones, plus $3.6 billion in sales-based payments.
Two months earlier, in April, AstraZeneca signed a three-way agreement with Pathos AI and Tempus AI, in a deal that will see all parties work together to “build a multimodal foundation model in oncology,” yielding new biological and clinical insights to guide drug development. The financial details of this alliance remain murky, though AstraZeneca has pledged $200 million in data licensing payments.
In 2023, AstraZeneca also inked two AI collaborations. One came in September that year with Verge Genomics, involving more than $880 million in commitments, targeting rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular conditions. The other was in December, with Absci, focused on identifying a cancer candidate. Payments to Absci could hit $247 million.
