AstraZeneca Strikes Obesity Multibillion-Dollar Deal With China's CSPC Pharmaceuticals — Update

By Adria Calatayud

AstraZeneca said it entered into a collaboration agreement with China's CSPC Pharmaceuticals to gain rights to a portfolio of early-stage experimental obesity and diabetes drugs, in a deal potentially valued at billions of dollars.

The U.K. pharmaceutical giant said Friday that it would pay $1.2 billion upfront to CSPC, up to $3.5 billion if the drugs hit development and regulatory targets and make additional payments linked to commercialization and sales goals plus royalties. CSPC separately said the sales milestone payments could be valued at up to $13.8 billion, and the royalties at up to double percentage digits of the annual sales of the licensed products.

If all the targets are achieved, the transaction value could end up leapfrogging recent blockbuster obesity deals such as Pfizer's takeover of weight-loss drug startup Metsera for more than $10 billion and Roche Holding's $5.3 billion licensing deal with Denmark's Zealand Pharma.

Several drugmakers are jostling to enter the fast-growing market for weight-loss drugs, currently dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, and some of them have turned to dealmaking to speed up their efforts.

Pfizer last year prevailed in a bidding war with Novo Nordisk for Metsera, while Roche is developing obesity drugs it acquired through its takeover of Carmot Therapeutics and seeking to complement them through a collaboration with Zealand Pharma.

Obesity and diabetes dealmaking reached record levels in 2025, according to a J.P. Morgan analysis based on DealForma data. Fewer deals resulted in a significantly higher aggregate value than in prior years, underscoring the strategic importance of the therapeutic area for the industry, J.P. Morgan said.

AstraZeneca is among the companies pushing into the weight-loss market, with several drug candidates in its pipeline for obesity and weight-related complications. It said the drugs licensed from CSPC would complement its existing weight-management portfolio.

The collaboration between AstraZeneca and CSPC will initially focus on four drugs, with the U.K. company getting global rights outside of China, they said. One of them is moving into early-stage trials and the other three have yet to enter clinical studies.

AstraZeneca and CSPC will also collaborate on four additional programs that use CSPC's technology platforms, they added.

The most advanced of the drugs licensed by CSPC is about to enter phase 1 studies in China and is in the same drug class as Eli Lilly's Zepbound, but designed for a more convenient monthly dosing, analysts at Macquarie wrote in a note to clients. The initial payment seems particularly large for such early-stage assets, the analysts added.

The deal also gives AstraZeneca access to CSPC's drug-discovery platform driven by artificial intelligence and to a monthly dosing technology, it said. AstraZeneca said it would have the option to use LiquidGel, a once-monthly dosing platform developed by CSPC, and to deploy it across its internal development efforts.

CSPC's AI-enabled capabilities and platform technology have the potential to transform the treatment of obesity, AstraZeneca's executive vice president and head of biopharmaceuticals research and development, Sharon Barr, said.

The deal builds on an existing relationship between AstraZeneca and CSPC, which last year entered into a collaboration agreement focused on AI-enabled research, and deepens the U.K. drugmaker's ties to China. AstraZeneca earlier this week said it would invest $15 billion in China, its second-biggest market after the U.S., through 2030 during U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's state visit to the country.

Shares in CSPC closed 10% lower in Hong Kong. AstraZeneca's shares were little moved in European morning trading.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 30, 2026 05:32 ET (10:32 GMT)