AstraZeneca has entered a drug discovery and licensing agreement with artificial intelligence company insitro to identify targets and develop candidates for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, or MASH, and cardiomyopathies.
Insitro will receive $40 million upfront and could earn up to approximately $1.46 billion in development and commercial milestone payments. It is also eligible for potential single-digit royalties on global commercial sales.
AstraZeneca will hold exclusive worldwide rights to advance selected programs identified through the collaboration.
The agreement centers on insitro’s Virtual Human AI platform, which combines large-scale human and cellular data with tools for target identification and medicine design. Insitro will use the platform to investigate disease biology across both indications and advance AstraZeneca-nominated targets from discovery through development candidate selection.
AstraZeneca will contribute clinical development and regulatory expertise to advance medicines arising from the work.
The companies aim to identify biological and genetic factors that cause disease, a challenge that influences which targets drug developers choose to pursue. The collaboration covers both discovery of new targets and development work on targets nominated by AstraZeneca.
Sharon Barr, AstraZeneca’s executive vice president and head of BioPharmaceuticals research and development, said target selection is among the most important decisions in drug research.
Insitro founder and chief executive Daphne Koller said the company would analyze complex datasets to identify disease drivers and genetic insights, pairing that work with AstraZeneca’s development capabilities.
The agreement focuses on two disease areas that the companies describe as biologically complex, with substantial unmet treatment needs: MASH and disorders affecting heart muscle.
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