AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to jointly develop another new cancer treatment
Biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has struck a deal with Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo to jointly develop and market a new medicine to treat lung, breast and other cancers.
AstraZeneca confirmed the agreement on Monday, July 27, which will see both companies pooling resources to develop the medicine, ‘DS-1062’.
If approved, it will be used to treat multiple tumours that express the cell-surface glycoprotein ‘TROP2’, which manifests in certain cancers. AstraZeneca will pay Daiichi Sankyo an upfront payment of $1 billion, followed by staggered payments of $350 million, $325 million and $325 million over two years.
AstraZeneca will pay additional conditional amounts of up to $1 billion for the successful achievement of regulatory approvals and up to $4 billion if sales targets are reached.
The announcement follows an agreement made by the two companies in March 2019 to jointly develop and market a breast cancer treatment, Enhertu, worldwide, except in Japan where Daiichi Sankyo maintains exclusive rights.
Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, said: “We are delighted to enter this new collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo and to build on the successful launch of Enhertu to further expand our pipeline and leadership in oncology. We now have six potential blockbusters in oncology with more to come in our early and late pipelines.”
Sunao Manabe, representative director, president and chief executive of Daiichi Sankyo, said: “This new strategic collaboration with AstraZeneca, a company with extensive experience and significant expertise in the global oncology business, will enable us to deliver DS-1062 to more patients around the world as quickly as possible. As we have done with Enhertu, we will jointly design and implement strategies to maximise the value of DS-1062.”
AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo will share the global development and commercialisation costs as well as profits relating to DS-1062, except for Japan where Daiichi Sankyo will maintain exclusive rights and bear costs.
