Vir Biotechnology and Gilead Sciences Ink Up to $1.88B AI Drug Discovery Pact for Solid Tumors

On Oct. 14, Vir Biotechnology announced a collaboration agreement with Gilead Sciences worth up to $1.88 billion to discover and develop new cancer treatments for solid tumors. Under the deal, Vir will receive a $90 million upfront payment and is eligible for up to $45 million in near-term preclinical milestones, as well as up to $1.74 billion in future development, regulatory and commercial milestones. After commercialization, Vir is also entitled to tiered royalties ranging from high single digits to low double digits.

Vir plans to use its PRO-XTEN masking technology and proprietary dAIsy AI platform to design drug candidates. The platform combines protein structure and sequence AI models to evaluate molecular affinity, stability and druggability, while incorporating wet-lab results into a closed-loop iterative process to accelerate candidate design and screening.

The deal follows an Oct. 13 announcement by Zealand Pharma and Generate Biomedicines unveiling a nearly $1.2 billion AI-powered collaboration focused on protein-based drugs for obesity and metabolic diseases. Recent deals suggest global drugmakers are increasingly looking to acquire AI-driven drug discovery pipelines.