Having secured one of last year’s largest funding rounds, AI-focused Formation Bio is now eyeing up 545 million euros ($626 million) in potential paydays from a licensing deal with Sanofi.
The French pharma has signed a pact that could reach 545 million euros in a combination of an upfront fee and milestone payments—although the companies didn’t offer a breakdown of the financials—in return for the license to Formation’s phase 3-stage oral dual JAK/SYK inhibitor gusacitinib.
Formation has taken gusacitinib into phase 3 development for chronic hand eczema. However, Sanofi is interested in exploring the therapy’s potential “in a new indication not previously studied through a phase 1 study.”
“This transaction with Sanofi ushers gusacitinib into its next stage of development, with Sanofi leveraging its global expertise in drug development and commercialization to explore its potential in new indications,” Formation said in a June 23 release.
Formation’s modus operandi is to “acquire high-potential assets, move quickly to unlock value, and partner at key inflection points,” Formation CEO Benjamine Liu explained in the release. “We're proud to have Sanofi as a world-class partner working together to accelerate innovation in medicine.”
Formation acquired gusacitinib from Asana BioSciences back in 2022 along with ASN008, a sodium channel blocker in phase 2 trials for notalgia paresthetica and itch associated with atopic dermatitis.
The biotech, formerly known as TrialSpark, raised $372 million in a series D round back in June 2024, which the company said at the time it would use to expand its clinical pipeline. Formation’s business model involves partnering with other drug developers to improve their workflow automation, such as generating tailored patient recruitment content for specific cohorts of a clinical trial or quickly producing AI-generated adverse event reports.
Sanofi was one of the series D investors, and the French pharma is also working alongside Formation as part of a multi-company collaboration to build an AI-powered tool designed to improve drug development by speeding up clinical trial recruitment.