AstraZeneca Plc is to explore the use of artificial intelligence in drug development and expand its oncology portfolio under two new collaborations with US companies. The first, announced on 28 September, is an equity investment and clinical collaboration with Summit Therapeutics Inc under which the companies will investigate combination therapies of a bispecific antibody from Summit with antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) from AstraZeneca.
The second deal, announced on 15 October, is a discovery and licensing agreement with Insitro Inc, to apply machine learning to drug discovery.
Under the collaboration with Insitro, AstraZeneca will make an upfront payment of $40 million for access to its AI technology. Potential development and commercial milestones could reach $1.46 billion. The goal is to identify novel targets for treatments for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a serious liver disease, and cardiomyopathies, a group of heart muscle diseases.
Separately, the deal with Summit is built around a $2 billion equity investment by AstraZeneca into newly issued Summit equity. This will give the UK-based multinational about 12% of Summit’s outstanding common stock.
This deal was completed on 5 October and will accelerate the development of Summit’s bispecific antibody, ivonescimab, in combination with ADCs from AstraZeneca across multiple tumour types. Summit in-licensed ivonescimab from the Chinese company Akeso Inc in 2023 and has rights to it in major territories outside China.
Ivonescimab targets the PD-1 immune checkpoint molecule as well as the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein, and is being studied in multiple cancer types.
In a related deal, AstraZeneca is to investigate ivonescimab in combination with the ADC Datroway (datopotanab deruxtecan), an approved drug for breast and lung cancers. Datroway was developed by AstraZeneca in collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd. The investigation of Datroway with ivonescimab will take place under another collaboration between the Datroway developers and Summit. The companies intend to start a Phase 3 trial of the combination treatment in first-line triple-negative breast cancer. The start date of the trial has not been disclosed.
In a prepared statement, Susan Galbraith, head of oncology haematology R&D at AstraZeneca said, “A core pillar of our oncology strategy is to broaden the reach of our ADC portfolio as the backbone of treatment across tumour types with combinations alongside next-generation immunotherapies.” Bispecifics targeting PD-1 and VEGF meet this requirement, she added.
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