Agentic AI company Owkin said it signed a three-year licensing agreement with AstraZeneca Plc. (NASDAQ:AZN) to develop specialized biopharma AI agents using its K Pro platform, expanding the companies' existing collaboration in drug discovery and development.
The agreement will allow Owkin to build end-to-end AI agents designed to operate within AstraZeneca's internal infrastructure and decision-making workflows.
The companies said the tools are intended to support competitive intelligence and provide faster access to data-driven insights while reducing reliance on manual analysis.
K Pro To Support Biopharma Decision Making
Owkin described K Pro as an "AI Scientist" platform built for pharmaceutical research and strategic decision-making.
The platform combines multimodal data with agentic AI tools aimed at helping researchers interpret complex biological information and improve productivity across the pharmaceutical value chain.
Under the agreement, AstraZeneca's teams will use the AI agents within established governance, enterprise security, and compliance standards, according to the company.
Thomas Clozel, CEO and co-founder of Owkin, said the pharmaceutical industry is moving toward agentic AI systems capable of supporting complex business and research decisions.
"At Owkin, we believe the future of the pharmaceutical industry is agentic," Clozel said. He added that the company's multimodal data network and AI infrastructure allow it to develop agents that can assist pharmaceutical executives with faster decision-making.
Partnership Builds On Earlier Cancer Research Work
The latest agreement builds on prior work between the two companies involving an AI gBRCA pre-screening solution for breast cancer patients.
Owkin said ongoing findings from that collaboration were presented at ESMO, where the BRCAura RUO solution demonstrated the ability to rule out roughly 40% of patients unlikely to carry gBRCA mutations while maintaining 93% sensitivity.
The diagnostic-focused work is now continuing under Waiv, a spinout from Owkin's diagnostics division. In contrast, Owkin continues focusing on what it describes as Biological Artificial Superintelligence aimed at solving complex biological challenges.
AZN Price Action: AstraZeneca shares were up 0.59% at $185.62 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro. Over the past month, AZN has declined about 8.3% versus a 9.2% rise in the S&P 500 and is up roughly 0% year-to-date compared to the index's 7.9% gain.
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