The front page of AI-driven biology
Thursday, October 15, 2026Thu, Oct 15
Updated 7:01 PM PT
AstraZeneca is paying insitro $40 million upfront, with up to $1.46 billion in potential milestones that bring the deal's headline value to $1.5 billion, to identify drug targets for metabolic liver disease and heart failure.
Roche has committed up to $100 million in upfront and near-term payments, as part of a deal worth up to nearly $1.2 billion including $1.06 billion in future milestones, to license an RNA interference candidate targeting ALK7 from China-based Rona Therapeutics.
Gilead Sciences committed $90 million upfront, comprising $65 million in cash and a $25 million equity investment at a 30% premium, to license three masked T-cell engager therapies engineered using Vir Biotechnology's PRO-XTEN platform.
Zealand Pharma and Flagship Pioneering spinout Generate Biomedicines agreed to collaborate on developing treatments for obesity using generative AI, according to Bloomberg News.
Enodia Therapeutics has signed a research collaboration and licensing pact worth up to $500 million in upfront cash, milestones, and royalties to develop small-molecule Sec61 inhibitors with Pfizer.
GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to access Chai Discovery's AI models for protein folding and design after validating generated antibody candidates across an internal panel of drug targets.
Roche has entered a research collaboration with Chinese startup Defand Therapeutics to discover and develop molecular glue drugs for cancer and immune diseases.
Biohaven out-licensed Asian rights to three extracellular protein degraders to Ono Pharmaceutical for $80 million upfront, with an additional $20 million milestone payment and a 20% cut of regional sales.
London-based specialty pharmaceutical company Theramex has agreed to pay up to $250 million to license a non-surgical therapy for cervical precancerous lesions from Shanghai-based Asieris Pharmaceuticals.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has unveiled an expanded $1.8 billion Virtual Biology Initiative in collaboration with Meta, Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs, the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health introduced Surpass, a program using predictive computational modeling, shared trial infrastructure, common controls, and real-time analysis to modernize clinical trials.
Roche's Genentech unit will pay Alector $100 million upfront, alongside up to $1.17 billion in potential milestones that bring the deal's total value to $1.27 billion, for exclusive global rights to AL050.
The expanded multi-year agreement adds one target, with an option for a second, to discover small molecules that stop the secretion of disease-driving proteins using Gate's Molecular Gate drug discovery engine.
CSL will pay Alentis Therapeutics $355 million upfront and up to $1.2 billion in milestones to co-develop and co-commercialize lixudebart, a monoclonal antibody targeting Claudin-1.
Summit Therapeutics has formed a clinical collaboration with AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to evaluate ivonescimab alongside Datroway in a Phase 3 trial for first-line triple-negative breast cancer, with the companies sharing study costs.
Novartis agreed to pay China's Abogen Biosciences $575 million upfront, alongside up to $7.2 billion in milestones that bring the total transaction value to $7.8 billion as reported by Reuters.
Under the expanded pact, Sanofi will pay $1 billion upfront and up to $7 billion in potential milestones to develop a new series of antibodies for immunological conditions.
GSK will pay Wave Life Sciences $12 million upfront to take ownership of a liver-targeted small interfering RNA (siRNA) candidate emerging from their 2022 research partnership.
AbbVie, argenx, Lundbeck, and Takeda have joined Ginkgo Bioworks and Apheris to assemble a standardized dataset of 10,000 antibodies aimed at training predictive AI models for drug manufacturing and formulation.
Novo Nordisk agreed to pay $300 million upfront to license HRS-1596, a once-weekly pill that activates GLP-1 and GIP metabolic receptors, from China's Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals.
Merck & Co. acquired worldwide rights to SPR2015, an experimental small molecule targeting the cancer mutation KRAS G12D from Shanghai-based SciBrunch, paying $400 million upfront in an agreement whose potential milestones bring the ceiling to $2.13 billion, reported by some outlets as $2.1 billion.
Tolerance Bio licensed ex-Japan rights to MT-2990, a clinical-stage human IgG1 monoclonal antibody targeting IL-33, in an agreement carrying potential milestones of up to $560 million.
Novo Nordisk has acquired exclusive rights to Nanexa's PharmaShell drug delivery technology for up to five peptide programs across obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other cardiometabolic indications, in an agreement valued at up to €1.165 billion ($1.33 billion, reported as $1.3 billion elsewhere).
Genentech is paying $55 million upfront in a multi-target oncology collaboration that could exceed $1.5 billion with development, regulatory, and commercial milestones.
Genialis and Inventia Life Science have partnered to match bioprinted 3D pancreatic cancer models with specific clinical patient subtypes.
The U.S. Department of War has awarded venture creator Flagship Pioneering a five-year, $47 million contract to build medical countermeasures against emerging biological and chemical threats.
The German drugmaker added over $250 million in potential upfront, license, and milestone payments to tap Variant's machine-learning platform for cardiovascular drug targets.
Novartis has licensed a preclinical radioligand cancer therapy from Chinese biotech BoomRay Therapeutics, agreeing to an upfront payment and milestones that could reach $900 million alongside future sales royalties.
Contract research and manufacturing provider Syngene International has extended its 25-year partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb through 2035, broadening work across discovery, translational medicine, clinical trials, and manufacturing.
Boehringer Ingelheim will use Envisagenics' SpliceCore machine-learning platform to identify and validate tumor-specific targets originating from aberrant RNA splicing, with total potential deal payments reaching $1 billion.