AI-Identified Cancer Drug Acquired for $2.2 Billion

U.S. biotech company Pathos AI is strengthening its pipeline by acquiring a bispecific antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) identified using its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) platform in a deal worth approximately $2.2 billion.

According to biopharmaceutical news outlet Fierce Biotech on the 4th (local time), Pathos AI licensed the bispecific ADC ‘JSKN016’ from China’s Alphamab Oncology and signed a co-development agreement with AstraZeneca for a preclinical PROTAC compound.

Under the agreement with Alphamab, Pathos AI secured development and commercialization rights to ‘JSKN016’ outside Greater China. The upfront payment is $125 million (approximately 187.5 billion won), while development and commercialization milestones could total up to $2.09 billion (approximately 3.135 trillion won). The total deal value is approximately $2.2 billion (approximately 3.3 trillion won).

‘JSKN016’ is a bispecific ADC that simultaneously targets TROP2 and HER3. Alphamab is currently conducting a phase 3 trial of an intravenous formulation in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and has also initiated a phase 1 trial of a subcutaneous (SC) formulation.

Pathos AI said it identified ‘JSKN016’ as a promising pipeline candidate through its proprietary AI platform, ‘Foundry.’ Foundry is a platform in which thousands of AI agents operate in parallel to analyze biological, clinical and real-world data.

Iker Huerga, CEO of Pathos AI, said, “‘JSKN016’ is a next-generation bispecific ADC with the potential to address unmet needs across a range of solid tumors. We identified this program through Foundry, the same platform that guides portfolio decisions across our clinical pipeline.”

Separately, Pathos AI has also partnered with AstraZeneca. The companies will co-develop the preclinical PROTAC ‘AZD4241’ for patients with estrogen receptor-positive (ER+), HER2-negative breast cancer. Pathos AI is expected to lead clinical development, and specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Regarding the agreement with AstraZeneca, Huerga said, “The bottleneck in oncology is not finding drug candidates but proving efficacy in the right patients. Foundry’s role is to design clinical trials by connecting those drugs with patients whose biology indicates they need them.”

With these agreements, Pathos AI has added two new candidates to its existing pipeline. The company’s portfolio includes ‘Fosenbrodup,’ a prostate cancer and multiple myeloma treatment licensed from Novo Nordisk in 2023; ‘DO-2,’ a treatment for MET-mutated cancers obtained from Duteroncolgy; and ‘P-500,’ licensed from Prelude Therapeutics in 2024.