Pathos AI is licensing an experimental antibody-drug conjugate that its own machine intelligence picked out of the field. The New York company will pay $125M upfront for rights to JSKN016 outside Greater China. Alphamab Oncology, which developed the molecule in China, can earn up to $2.09B in milestones and royalties on top.
The drug pairs antibodies against TROP2 and HER3, two proteins common on solid tumors. Pathos chose it through Foundry, a platform that runs thousands of AI agents over biological, clinical and real-world data. Alphamab already has the intravenous form in a phase 3 trial for triple-negative breast cancer. A subcutaneous version is in phase 1.
Pathos also unveiled a co-exclusive licensing deal with AstraZeneca for AZD4241, a preclinical PROTAC degrader for estrogen receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. Pathos takes the molecule into the clinic; financial terms were not disclosed.
CEO Iker Huerga argues the oncology bottleneck is not finding molecules but proving they work in the right patients, and that Foundry is built to design the trial that proves it, matching each drug to the biology that demands it.
The additions sit atop a pipeline that includes pocenbrodib, a CBP/p300 inhibitor licensed from Novo Nordisk for prostate cancer and multiple myeloma, and DO-2, a MET inhibitor from its majority stake in DeuterOncology. Pathos closed a $365M Series D in May 2025.
The deals show agentic AI moving from discovery hype into dealmaking, with machine intelligence now steering licensing choices at drug developers.
