AstraZeneca has gone ahead and committed $100 million to head deeper into the KRAS space by way of securing the right when it comes to a clinical-stage, multitarget asset from Jacobio Pharma of China.
The U.K.-based pharma giant has scored the exclusive rights so as to develop and commercialize the pan-KRAS inhibitor, which is dubbed JAB-23E73, outside of China. On the home territory of Jacobio, the Beijing-headquartered biopharma is going to jointly work on the therapy with AstraZeneca.
JAB-23E73 was developed with the induced allosteric drug discovery platform of Jacobio, which the company has crafted so as to target multiple KRAS mutation subtypes. Thus far, the biopharma has been assessing JAB-23E73 in phase 1 studies across both China and the U.S., with Jacobio pointing to early signs when it comes to anti-tumor activity.
That activity appears to have been pretty enough so as to attract AstraZeneca, which, beyond the $100 million upfront payment, is also liable to go ahead and make development and also commercial milestone payments of almost $1.91 billion and distribute tiered royalties on net sales outside China.
KRAS, apparently, has been an area of interest for AstraZeneca since 2012, when the pharma went ahead and licensed an anti-KRAS antisense oligonucleotide called AZD4785 from Ionis Pharmaceuticals. That candidate never went on to progress past phase 1, with AstraZeneca pulling the plug post wrapping up a trial in 2019; however, the company’s research teams continued to work on the objective.
After discovering AZD4625, the KRAS G12C inhibitor, AstraZeneca tweaked the molecule so as to generate the clinical candidate AZD4747. Thereafter, in 2023, the drugmaker went to China in order to license a preclinical KRAS G12D asset from Usynova.
As per senior vice president, early oncology and precision medicine, oncology R&D, AstraZeneca, Matt Hellmann, in a press release, KRAS is one of the most significant oncogenes in cancer, with KRAS-mutated tumors driving the profound unmet requirement for patients having pancreatic, colorectal, or lung cancers.
Hellmann added that through advancing pan-KRAS inhibitors such as JAB-23E73, and in combination with their diverse oncology portfolio, they look forward to accelerating the development of new treatment regimens, which indeed have the potential to go ahead and transform outcomes for patients.
Notably, AstraZeneca isn’t the first pharma that has seen the potential in Jacobio’s pipeline. AbbVie went ahead and secured the rights to Jacobio’s SHP2 portfolio in 2020 before handing back the assets as part of the portfolio review after two years.
More recently, Allist Pharmaceuticals went ahead and paid almost $21 million in 2024 for the rights to one of those SHP2 inhibitors and also a KRAS G12C inhibitor named glecirasib. Glecirasib showcased an overall rate of response at 47.9% in a Chinese trial that took place on 119 patients with locally advanced or metastatic KRAS G12C-mutated non-small cell lung cancer in 2024 and thereafter secured approval in China in May 2025.
Yinxiang Wang, Ph.D., the co-CEO of Jacobio, said that the deal that took place with AstraZeneca on December 21, 2025, marks a major step forward as they bring their world-class programs to the global stage and also maximize the value when it comes to their R&D innovation.
As per the company, which also has an R&D presence in Boston, this agreement indeed makes the financial position of Jacobio more robust and also speeds up the global development endeavors, and at the same time, broadens their presence in the global oncology innovation spectrum.
