AstraZeneca returns to CSPC with $1.77bn kidney deal
AstraZeneca has signed another deal with China’s CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, this time to discover and develop siRNA drug candidates for kidney diseases.
Why it matters: The agreement adds to a fast-growing relationship between the Cambridge-headquartered pharma and CSPC, and underlines how China-based discovery platforms are becoming a larger part of Big Pharma’s global pipeline sourcing.
Zoom in: Under the new collaboration, AstraZeneca and CSPC will work on preclinical candidates for two renal disease targets. AstraZeneca will have options to take exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise the resulting candidates globally or outside China, depending on the programme.
- CSPC will retain China rights to one of the preclinical candidates. The Chinese company will receive $30m upfront and could earn up to $540m in development milestones and up to $1.2bn in sales milestones, plus single-digit royalties.
How it works: The deal gives AstraZeneca access to CSPC’s siRNA discovery platform and extrahepatic targeted delivery technology. CSPC says the platform uses AI-based molecular design and automated high-throughput screening to identify nucleic acid molecules with enhanced activity and extrahepatic targeting potential.
Backstory: This is not a one-off. AstraZeneca first struck a CSPC deal in October 2024, paying $100m upfront for a preclinical cardiovascular small molecule targeting lipoprotein (a), with up to $1.92bn in milestones.
- In June 2025, the companies expanded the relationship with an AI-enabled oral drug discovery collaboration worth up to $5.33bn, including $110m upfront.
- Then, in January 2026, AstraZeneca returned with a much larger obesity and metabolic disease pact, paying $1.2bn upfront for ex-China rights to CSPC’s once-monthly weight-management portfolio, with the total potential value reaching $18.5bn.
Between the lines: That obesity deal came just after AstraZeneca announced a $15bn investment plan in China through 2030, covering manufacturing, R&D and next-generation modalities such as cell therapies and radioconjugates.
The bottom line: AstraZeneca’s latest CSPC deal lands in a year when China’s role in global pharma dealmaking has become impossible to ignore. Companies in China and Hong Kong now account for 50% of major pharmaceutical partnerships in 2026, according to The Wall Street Journal.
