AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot said Summit Therapeutics’ lead cancer drug could help drive the next generation of cancer treatment combinations, describing it as part of the “future of cancer care”.
His comments came after AstraZeneca agreed to invest $2 billion in Summit and collaborate on clinical trials involving potential combinations with its own cancer medicines.
The investment gives AstraZeneca an approximately 12% stake in Summit, while the biotech retains full permission and commercial rights to ivonescimab.
Ivonescimab is a bispecific antibody designed to attack cancer through two pathways. It blocks PD-1, a mechanism that restrains immune cells, while also targeting VEGF, a signal that helps tumours develop new blood vessels.
The approach is intended both to release the immune system to attack cancer cells and to restrict the blood supply tumours need to grow.
Mr Soriot described the treatment as a next-generation drug following the first wave of medicines focused solely on PD-1, including Merck’s Keytruda.
Ivonescimab attracted international attention after head-to-head clinical trials found it outperformed Keytruda in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Keytruda is one of the world’s highest-grossing medicines and has been a standard treatment for the disease.
AstraZeneca is particularly interested in combining ivonescimab with its portfolio of antibody-drug conjugates, which deliver targeted treatments to cancer cells.
“Summit’s drug in particular is very exciting because it can help address a certain number of tumour types that can be better treated in combination with antibody-drug conjugates, better treated than with existing first-generation PD-1 agents,” Mr Soriot said.
AstraZeneca’s research and development expansion
Mr Soriot was speaking from AstraZeneca’s new research and development facility in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which the company said had opened on Monday.
The more than $1 billion site covers 570,000 square feet and will be used to develop treatments in areas including obesity, breast cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and rare diseases.
AstraZeneca said products developed at the centre would help support the company’s growth beyond 2030. The facility will use robotics, continuous automation and agentic AI in drug discovery and development.
About 20% of the investment in the site is being directed towards robotics and AI, according to Mr Soriot.
“It’s faster, lower cost of research and development, more products that are delivered to better products that are delivered to patients,” he said. “We are on the race against disease, and there’s a lot of unmet needs out there.”
He said the aim was to use AI to invent medicines more quickly and robotics to simplify and accelerate the discovery and development of molecules, particularly during the preclinical stage.
