Pathos AI could pay more than $2 billion to a Jiangsu Alphamab Biopharmaceuticals subsidiary for a late-stage bispecific antibody-drug conjugate for breast cancer, while the financial details of the AstraZeneca agreement were not disclosed.
Pathos AI has linked up with AstraZeneca and Suzhou-based Jiangsu Alphamab Biopharmaceuticals in a pair of partnerships that will beef up the New York drugmaker’s clinical cancer pipeline.
With Jiangsu Alphamab, a subsidiary of Alphamab Oncology, Pathos is paying $125 million upfront and has earmarked up to $2.093 billion in milestones for rights to a bispecific antibody-drug conjugate in late-stage development for breast cancer, according to a Monday release. The Chinese company also stands to receive tiered royalties in the high-single-digit to low-double-digit percentage range, based on annual net sales—granted the alliance asset reaches the market.
Financial details of the AstraZeneca agreement, on the other hand, weren’t revealed but the deal centers around the pharma’s preclinical PROTAC degrader that is also targeting breast cancer, per a separate announcement on Monday.
Across both Monday partnerships, Pathos will leverage its proprietary AI platform Foundry, which according to the company’s website is built on the “largest oncology foundation model in the industry.” By using “thousands” of AI agents, Foundry is able to analyze complex clinical, biological and real-world data to optimize trial design and dosing, as well as match patients to the safest treatments that are most likely to elicit therapeutic benefit, Pathos said on Monday.
Under the AstraZeneca deal, Pathos will use Foundry to advance AZD4241, which targets and degrades the estrogen receptor. The asset is being proposed for ER+/HER2- breast cancer. Pathos will take charge of AZD4241’s early-stage development informed directly by insights from Foundry. It is unclear at what point of the drug development process AstraZeneca will take over.
From Jiangsu Alphamab, Pathos has in-licensed JSKN016—itself a molecule “identified and prioritized through Foundry,” the AI specialist said on Monday. JSKN016 is currently in pivotal development for later-line triple-negative breast cancer in China, where Jiangsu Alphamab will retain full rights over the asset, as well as in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
With the deal, Pathos will have full control over JSKN016 in all other territories and be responsible for the asset’s development and commercialization globally—again, as informed by insights from Foundry. “Every major asset-level decision at Pathos flows through Foundry,” the company said on Monday. Jiangsu Alphamab is also studying JSKN016 in various types of breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and other advanced solid tumors.
With the two new agreements, Pathos now has four assets in the clinic, alongside the early-stage pocenbrodib for prostate cancer, breast cancer and multiple myeloma, as well as Phase 2 P-500 for solid tumors.
