Astrazeneca plc is investing $15 billion in China through 2030 to expand R&D and manufacturing, marking one of the largest long-term investments by a multinational pharma company in the country. The U.K.-based company also struck a deal worth up to $3.5 billion with China’s CSPC Pharmaceuticals Group Ltd. to accelerate the development of next-generation therapies for obesity and type 2 diabetes.
An Anglo-American team of researchers has devised a new computational method for quantifying Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) directly from human genome sequences and used this to identify 22 genes that link higher levels of the virus to a range of chronic diseases. The new method sets the scene for further exploration of biobank DNA sequence data to gain greater understanding of the nature and the role of the human virome, the 10(13) – largely unstudied – viral particles that coexist in humans.
Astrazeneca plc is investing $15 billion in China through 2030 to expand R&D and manufacturing, marking one of the largest long-term investments by a multinational pharma company in the country. The U.K.-based company also struck a deal worth up to $3.5 billion with China’s CSPC Pharmaceuticals Group Ltd. to accelerate the development of next-generation therapies for obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Astrazeneca plc has signed a new strategic collaboration agreement with CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. to advance the development of next-generation therapies for obesity and type 2 diabetes across eight programs.
In a lawsuit that’s been bouncing through the courts for years, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia once again cleared the way for several biopharma and medical device companies to potentially be held liable, under the Anti-Terrorism Act, for terrorist attacks against hundreds of Americans in Iraq.
Astrazeneca plc is paying up to $630 million to acquire China rights to Abelzeta's Pharma Inc.’s C-CAR031 (AZD5851), an autologous glypican 3-targeting CAR T, securing global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize the CAR T for liver cancer.
Illumina Inc. presented at the J.P. Morgan 2026 Healthcare Conference on Jan. 13 and introduced what it said is the world's largest genome-wide genetic perturbation dataset, being built to accelerate drug discovery through AI across the pharmaceutical ecosystem. This is a move away from its core focus on DNA sequencing technology.
Jacobio Pharmaceuticals Group Co. Ltd. is outlicensing its phase I pan-KRAS inhibitor, JAB-23E73, to Astrazeneca plc in a global deal worth up to $1.915 billion that gives Astrazeneca global rights to the compound outside of China, and the two companies will jointly develop and commercialize the asset in China.
Harbour Biomed has added another collaboration to its end-of-year dealmaking, this time with Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) to develop multispecific antibodies. Harbour is getting about $90 million up front, but milestones could eventually top $1 billion.
Big pharma is increasingly shopping in China to fill its pipelines as it faces looming patent cliffs on major blockbusters coupled with growing pricing pressures on drugs. As previously reported by BioWorld, China’s out-licensing deals grew to represent 32% of global deals in the first half of 2025, up from 21% in 2024, and only 5% in 2020, Jefferies Hong Kong-based analyst Cui Cui wrote in a July 2025 report on China dealmaking.
