Summit (SMMT.US) surges after-hours following $2 billions investment from AstraZeneca (AZN.US) and joint drug development collaboration

According to Golden Ten Data APP, anti-cancer drug developer Summit Therapeutics (SMMT.US) announced that AstraZeneca (AZN.US) will make a strategic equity investment of $2 billion in the company, and both parties will jointly develop drugs. Boosted by this news, as of press time, Summit shares surged nearly 17% in after-hours U.S. trading on Monday.

Summit stated that AstraZeneca’s equity investment will be made in the form of convertible preferred shares, with the corresponding common stock price at $18.36 per share, a premium of nearly 19% over Summit’s closing price on Monday.

Meanwhile, both parties will collaborate on related research, combining Summit’s experimental drug ivonescimab with AstraZeneca’s sonesitatug vedotin for gastrointestinal cancer treatment. Summit said these studies will begin “soon.” Both companies will retain rights to their respective drug molecules. In addition, they plan to conduct more trials to investigate the combination of ivonescimab with other compounds from AstraZeneca, including antibody-drug conjugates. Both parties will jointly fund these studies, with AstraZeneca serving as the study initiator.

Ivonescimab is reportedly Summit's core candidate drug. Currently, it is being tested for multiple indications, including certain types of lung cancer and colorectal cancer. Earlier this year, a study involving more than 500 patients in China showed positive results, but some doctors questioned whether these findings would apply to U.S. patients, as U.S. patients are generally older than the participants in that trial.