AstraZeneca signs five-year licensing deal for RNA therapeutics

AstraZeneca has signed a five-year licensing deal with Moderna Therapeutics, a US biotechnology company specialising in drugs using RNA therapeutics.

The agreement was announced at an investor’s meeting in New York on Thursday, March 18 and will give AstraZeneca exclusive access to up to 40 new drugs for the treatment of cardio-metabolic diseases and cancer.

Massachusetts-based Moderna will receive an upfront payment of $240 million, an additional payment of $180 million if it achieves three technical milestones and royalties from drug sales.

RNA therapeutics uses synthetic versions of messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid), which enable the body to produce healing proteins.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, said the agreement “signals an exciting move for AstraZeneca”.

“Where current drug discovery technologies can target only a fraction of the disease-relevant proteins in the human genome, we have the potential to create completely new medicines to treat patients with serious cardiometabolic diseases and cancer,” he said.

Stephanie Bancel, president and chief executive of Moderna, said it will enable the companies to create “new innovative drugs for targets which are totally undruggable today”.

AstraZeneca’s initial payment to Moderna will reportedly be one of the largest ever upfront fees in a licensing deal that is not based around a specific product being tested in clinical trials.

Scott Bluni, partner and co-head of Bingham McCutchen’s intellectual property practice in Boston, said this due to a number of different factors.

“The technology being licensed in this deal is not just a drug, it’s a platform that has the potential to be used in numerous drugs to treat numerous diseases. I’m assuming there is some very strong IP behind the agreement, as it would be unusual to see this kind of upfront sum being paid without it,” he said.

“Generally speaking, it’s no secret that the pipeline for big pharmaceutical companies has slowed—these organisations are hyper-focussed on what’s next, and this type of deal is what will give them access to the next generation of products,” he added.

By investing in a collaborative partnership rather than a simple licensing agreement, Bluni said AstraZeneca will gain access to a new and developing technology before it is exclusively licensed on a product-by-product basis and “picked apart by others interested in the platform”.

“It’s a pioneering kind of deal, and it’s a large initial payment, but it will certainly pay off if the technology proves itself,” he said.