.png)
Q1 2026 saw a range of partnerships driving drug development forward, with a strong emphasis on AI-enabled capabilities alongside high-value licensing deals spanning therapeutic areas and modalities.
Happy Reading!
Digital Transformation & AI
EMA and FDA Establish Joint AI Principles for Drug Development
The EMA and FDA jointly established ten principles for good AI practice to guide the responsible use of AI across the full therapeutic lifecycle, from early research and clinical trials through to manufacturing and safety monitoring. This initiative aims to support pharmaceutical companies, medicine developers, and regulatory bodies in harnessing AI's potential to accelerate drug development while ensuring patient safety and regulatory compliance across both jurisdictions.
IQVIA unveiled IQVIA.ai, a unified AI platform designed to help life sciences organizations enhance operations, decision-making, and innovation across clinical, commercial, and real-world applications. The platform integrates IQVIA’s life sciences expertise, proprietary Healthcare-grade AI, and extensive data resources with NVIDIA technologies including Nemotron, NeMo Agent Toolkit, Dynamo, and LangChain.
BMS to Leverage Evinova for Clinical Development
Evinova, a dedicated health technology business within AstraZeneca, announced a strategic agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb to deploy its AI-native clinical development platform across BMS's global trial portfolio, aimed at improving trial design, reducing costs, and accelerating timelines. The collaboration underscores growing industry demand for AI-driven pharma services, with Evinova's end-to-end platform offering capabilities spanning study design optimization, eCOA, telehealth, and remote patient monitoring that have delivered measurable efficiencies for clients across the industry.
AstraZeneca and Astellas to Deploy Evinova for Clinical Development
Astellas and AstraZeneca are joining BMS and deploying Evinova’s AI platform to speed up clinical development and trial design. Evinova was launched by AstraZeneca in 2023 to advance digital health solutions, and all 3 pharma companies have agreed to share their operational data with Evinova to accelerate clinical trials. Evinova claims its platform has achieved 5% to 7% savings per study, equating to hundreds of millions of dollars for its pharma partners.
Bayer and Cradle Enter 3-Year Collaboration, Focused on Protein Engineering
Bayer and Cradle entered a three-year strategic collaboration to integrate Cradle's generative AI platform into Bayer's R&D workflows, aimed at reducing optimization cycles and improving molecular potency, safety, and manufacturability across its therapeutic antibody pipeline. The partnership combines Bayer's internal capabilities in antibody design and machine learning with Cradle's AI software platform, with both companies also planning a joint machine learning research project to further develop these capabilities.
Novartis and Unnatural Products Partnership Could be Worth $1.7B
Novartis is paying Unnatural Products $100M upfront and up to $1.7B total in an effort to develop next-gen cardiovascular disease therapeutics. Novartis will gain access to UNP’s AI-guided platform to quickly create potent and selective macrocycles that can be delivered both orally and via injection. Novartis will be in charge of all IND-enabling studies and subsequent clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization of potential drugs stemming from the collaboration. Specific indication targets were not disclosed, but UNP’s efforts are designed to address historically undruggable targets.
Merck to Integrate Mayo Clinic Multi-Modal Data to Support AI Deployment
Merck and Mayo Clinic announced an R&D agreement to apply AI, advanced analytics, and multimodal clinical data to support drug discovery and development, utilizing Mayo’s Platform architecture and clinical and genomic datasets. This is Mayo’s first strategic collaboration of this scale, and will give Merck access to world-class datasets and abilities to scale and accelerate drug development.
Daiichi Sankyo is partnering with Tempus to harness its advanced AI capabilities, including PRISM2, a cutting-edge multimodal foundation model that links pathology imaging with clinical information to generate actionable insights. By integrating Daiichi Sankyo’s trial and preclinical datasets with Tempus’ extensive real-world oncology data, the collaboration seeks to accelerate the identification of biomarkers and refine patient segmentation. The teams will build experimental AI models aimed at improving patient selection and boosting the likelihood of success for a novel ADC. Using Tempus’ large oncology database, these models will create detailed response profiles, support precise patient stratification, and provide robust benchmarks for potential control arms in upcoming clinical studies.
BostonGene and AstraZeneca Partner to Accelerate AI-Driven Oncology Drug Development
BostonGene and AstraZeneca entered a strategic collaboration to integrate BostonGene's multimodal AI platform into AstraZeneca's oncology drug development pipeline, with the goal of predicting patient-level safety and efficacy outcomes in early clinical trials. The partnership aims to accelerate development timelines, reduce risk across AstraZeneca's oncology portfolio, and optimize regulatory pathways through AI-driven molecular insights and biomarker-informed strategies.
Lunit, an AI-driven cancer diagnostic company, and CellCarta, a global CRO laboratory serving the biopharmaceutical industry, have formed a strategic partnership to expand adoption of AI-powered digital pathology in translational research, clinical trials, and companion diagnostic programs. The collaboration combines Lunit’s platform-agnostic AI pathology solutions with CellCarta’s global pathology network, CDx capabilities, and regulated laboratory infrastructure. Together, they aim to support single-site CDx development and launch, along with lab-developed test strategies for global trials.
M&A
Charles River Laboratories Acquires K.F. and PathoQuest to Strengthen NHP Supply Chain
Charles River Laboratories acquired Cambodian nonhuman primate (NHP) supplier K.F. for $510 million, securing greater control over its nonhuman primate supply chain after years of disruption following China's 2020 export ban. The company also bought out the remaining equity in PathoQuest for $60 million, expanding its nonanimal biologics testing capabilities, with both deals expected to improve operating margins and support growing demand across its discovery and safety assessment business.
IQVIA to Acquire Drug Discovery Assets from Charles River, Includes 5 Specialized Sites
IQVIA has agreed to acquire select drug discovery service assets from Charles River Laboratories, including multiple sites focused on in vitro research, non-animal testing approaches, and a small-molecule AI platform. These capabilities are supported by decades of scientific data and have contributed to numerous clinical-stage and approved drugs. The deal strengthens IQVIA’s early discovery offering by expanding its end-to-end platform while broadening support across modalities and key therapeutic areas like oncology and neurology.
Scantox has acquired TwinStrand Biosciences’ nonclinical genomics safety business through a licensing and technology transfer agreement. The deal gives Scantox access to DuplexSeq, an error-corrected sequencing-based assay that enables highly sensitive detection of rare mutations. These capabilities expand Scantox’s offerings in genetic toxicology, supporting applications such as carcinogenicity testing, gene-editing safety, and broader nonclinical studies. By directly measuring mutations at the genomic level, the technology can help sponsors assess mutagenic risk earlier and make more informed development decisions.
High-Value Licensing
Gilead Secures Rights to Genhouse Bio's GH31 with $80M Upfront Payment
Gilead secures another synthetic lethal therapy for $80M upfront for the clinic-ready cancer drug from Genhouse Bio. Genhouse has already gotten approval from regulators in China and the U.S. to take GH31, a MAT2A-targetting synthetic lethal therapy, into clinical trials. Genhouse can receive up to $1.45B in milestone payments as well as royalties on net sales. This news comes after Gilead’s move in December 2025 for another synthetic lethal therapy, Repare Therapeutics’ polymerase theta ATPase inhibitor, for $25M upfront.
Eli Lilly and Innovent Collaboration Features $350M Upfront, Emphasis on Immunology and Oncology
Lilly is paying $350M in upfront cash to collaborate with Innovent on new meds for patients with cancer or immune disorders, with specific targets and number of drugs left undisclosed. Innovent is in line for heavily backloaded development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments that could reach a combined total of $8.5B. Innovent is planning to use its antibody platform to bring oncology and immunology programs from the drawing board through to the completion of a phase 2 study, at which point Lilly will take the drugs forward and secure the license for the assets outside greater China. This marks the 7th agreement between Lilly and Innovent.
Evotec announced that its partner Bristol Myers Squibb has launched a Phase 1 clinical trial for BMS-986506, a CELMoD (cereblon E3 ligase modulator) targeting clear cell renal cell carcinoma. This first-in-human study marks a major milestone in the companies’ protein degradation collaboration, advancing a novel “molecular glue” candidate developed using Evotec’s integrated drug discovery platform. The platform combines high-throughput multi-omics screening with AI-driven analytics and drug design to direct cancer cells to degrade disease-causing proteins. With the trial initiation, Evotec is set to receive a $10 million milestone payment.
GSK Obtains Global Rights to Two Frontier Biotech si-RNA Products
GSK will obtain exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialize two of Frontier Biotech’s siRNA pipeline products, one of which is currently at IND stage and the other a preclinical candidate. Frontier Biotech will receive $40M upfront and up to $963M in success-based development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties on net sales worldwide.
Personnel
Charles River Laboratories CEO Jim Foster to Retire, Names Birgit Girshick as Successor
Charles River Laboratories announced that CEO Jim Foster will retire in May 2026 after a 50-year career, during which he transformed the company from a niche research models business into a leading global preclinical contract research organization with approximately $4 billion in annual revenue. The Board has appointed current COO Birgit Girshick as his successor, with her focus set on advancing drug development capabilities, scientific innovation, and operational efficiency within the evolving biopharmaceutical landscape.
.png)
