On October 7, AstraZeneca and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group signed an exclusive licensing agreement, and AstraZeneca will obtain CSPC Pharmaceutical Group's preclinical candidate small molecule drug YS2302018. The transaction amount hit a new high. According to the agreement, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group will receive an advance payment of US$100 million and is entitled to receive potential development milestone payments of up to US$370 million and potential sales milestone payments of up to US$1.55 billion, as well as tiered sales commissions calculated based on the annual net sales of the product (the total transaction amount exceeds RMB 10 billion at the current exchange rate). YS2302018 is a preclinical innovative small molecule lipoprotein (a) (Lp(a)) inhibitor used to develop new lipid-lowering therapies, as well as monotherapy or combination therapy for a variety of cardiovascular diseases, including in combination with the oral small molecule PCSK9 inhibitor AZD0780.

Lpa is an important target in the field of lipid-lowering and a target that MNCs are competing to deploy. However, from the market point of view, the competition for this target is mainly based on siRNA or ASO. At present, many pharmaceutical companies have deployed this target. For example, Olpasiran, developed by Amgen and Arrowhead, has entered the Phase III clinical stage at the earliest; Pelacarsen, developed by Novartis and Ionis, is in the Phase III clinical stage; Lepodisiran, developed by Eli Lilly and Dicerna, has started Phase III clinical trials this year; AstraZeneca, as a latecomer, chose the small molecule drug form to enter.

Data have confirmed that YS2302018 can effectively prevent the formation of lipoprotein (a), which is a low-density lipoprotein (LDL) that plays a key role in cholesterol transportation in the blood. Elevated levels of lipoprotein (a) and elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol are known risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, including coronary heart disease and stroke. The cardiovascular, renal and metabolic disease field is one of the important disease areas for AstraZeneca's development. The performance report for the first half of 2024 shows that the total revenue in this disease field reached US$6.22 billion, an increase of 22%. Among them, dapagliflozin, as the main driving force, achieved sales of US$3.836 billion in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 38%.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the diseases with high prevalence and morbidity worldwide. The Global Burden of Disease Study shows that from 1990 to 2019, the age-standardized incidence of cardiovascular disease in the 1-79 age group in China increased from 646.2/100,000 person-years to 652.2/100,000 person-years. According to the "Guidelines for the Management of Blood Lipids in China (2023)", the combined use of lipid-lowering drugs has become the basic trend and important strategy for lipid-lowering treatment in China. Dyslipidemia may lead to the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, thereby causing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, so early intervention is very important.

AstraZeneca said that YS2302018 has the potential to bring more benefits to patients with dyslipidemia, and further strengthen its cardiovascular product pipeline to help solve the main risk factors for chronic cardiovascular disease.

AstraZeneca and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group are constantly expanding. From the development trajectory of AstraZeneca and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, both pharmaceutical companies are actively expanding. This year, AstraZeneca has reached major cooperation with many pharmaceutical companies, and the transaction amount is not small. In May, AstraZeneca reached a cooperation agreement with Nona Bio (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hebo Pharmaceuticals), and Nona Bio licensed a new monoclonal antibody drug for tumor targeted therapy in the preclinical stage to AstraZeneca. The total amount of this transaction reached US$604 million.

Earlier, AstraZeneca reached a strategic cooperation with SixPeaks (a Swiss biotechnology startup company focused on developing advanced healthy weight loss therapies). SixPeaks has developed an anti-activin receptor IIA/B antibody coupled to a GLP-1 peptide, which may become a potential "first-in-class" therapy to maximize the weight loss effect mediated by GLP-1 receptor agonists while preserving muscle mass. Whether it is the hot tumor or weight loss track, AstraZeneca is actively deploying, and from the perspective of the pharmaceutical companies it cooperates with, some of the drugs it focuses on are in the early clinical stage.

The other party to this cooperation, CSPC Pharmaceuticals, has also been making continuous moves in the capital market recently. Two days before the National Day holiday, CSPC Pharmaceuticals announced that it had signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Jiangsu Alphamab Jebsen for the development and commercialization of JSKN003 (an ADC targeting HER2 dual-epitope antibody-drug conjugate) in mainland China; at the end of August, CSPC Pharmaceuticals officially "took over" *ST Jingfeng, and is expected to occupy the elemene emulsion injection market with absolute advantage.

Prior to this, CSPC Pharmaceuticals Group replaced a new executive president, global R&D president, and chairman. In addition to this cooperation, CSPC Pharmaceuticals Group also obtained immune antibodies, ADCs, mRNA, etc. from Jushi Bio. In its 2024 semi-annual report, CSPC Pharmaceuticals Group expects that nearly 50 innovative drugs and new formulations will be listed in the next five years, and more than 60 generic drugs will be listed. To achieve this goal, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Group has been actively promoting business development while continuously improving its internal innovation and R&D capabilities.

CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Group has a wide range of new technologies and new drug forms, focusing on the development of small molecule drugs to build PROTAC, LYTAC and AI technology screening platforms. The drug that CSPC Pharmaceutical Group and AstraZeneca are collaborating on this time is based on the AI drug design platform. It binds to Apo (a) to prevent it from assembling with ApoB-100 particles into Lpa. At present, this Lp (a) lipid-lowering drug is still in the early preclinical development stage. In addition, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group's BD key therapeutic area strategy in 2024 includes strengthening the leading position in the deployed fields (neurological field; oncology field; cardiovascular and endocrine field; respiratory, autoimmune and anti-infection field); developing novel therapeutic fields and technology platforms (nephrology field, ophthalmology field, nuclear medicine field, mental field, analgesia field, orthopedics field). As a global pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca has long been one of its important strategies to obtain more varieties and markets through external expansion.

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