Absci (ABSI) Up on AstraZeneca Deal to Design New Cancer Therapy
Absci Corporation ABSI announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with pharma goliath, AstraZeneca AZN, to deliver an artificial intelligence (AI)-designed antibody for an undisclosed oncology target.
The collaboration deal will leverage Absci's Integrated Drug Creation platform with AstraZeneca's massive resources and expertise in oncology to accelerate the discovery of a potential new cancer treatment candidate.
The company’s stock swiftly climbed 12.6% in the last trading session as the investors cheered the encouraging collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca. Year to date, shares of ABSI have lost 6.7% compared with the industry’s 21.2% fall.
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Per the terms of the agreement, Absci will utilize its pioneering generative AI technology to deliver a therapeutic candidate antibody to AstraZeneca for a specified oncology target. In return, AZN is liable to pay ABSI an upfront amount, along with research and development funding and milestone payments, bringing the total deal value up to $247 million in addition to potential royalties on future product sales.
Absci's Integrated Drug Creation platform utilizes generative AI and a plethora of scalable wet-lab technologies to generate proprietary data by measuring millions of interactions between proteins. These data are then fed to the company's proprietary AI models and later used to validate antibodies designed using such cutting-edge AI models.
Effective use of ABSI’s platform is expected to significantly speed up the process of drug discovery, at the same time increasing the odds of successful development.
Absci Corporation Price and Consensus
Absci Corporation price-consensus-chart | Absci Corporation Quote
In 2023, the pharma industry witnessed several collaborations between leading pharmaceutical companies and smaller research-focused companies to advance the development of anti-tumor drugs using various technologies.
One such recent example is the September 2023, strategic research and development collaboration agreement worth $1.7 billion between Moderna MRNA and Germany-based Immatics IMTX to develop novel therapies targeting cancer indications.
The collaboration intends to combine Immatics’ T-cell receptor platform with Moderna’s mRNA technology across multiple therapeutics modalities, including bispecifics, cell therapy and cancer vaccines.
The deal will also include the joint development of Immatics’ IMA203 TCR-T therapy targeting preferentially expressed antigen in melanoma (PRAME) in combination with Moderna’s PRAME mRNA-based cancer vaccine.
Under the terms of the deal, Moderna will lead clinical development and commercialization, while Immatics will be responsible for preclinical and phase I clinical studies on the IMA203/PRAME mRNA vaccine combination.
Zacks Rank
Absci currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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