Eccogene will receive initial upfront payment of $185 million. Eccogene is also eligible to receive up to $1.825 billion in future clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones, as well as royalty payments.

AstraZeneca will receive an exclusive license to develop and commercialize ECC5004 in all territories except China. In China, Eccogene and AstraZeneca will partner for co-development and co-commercialization.

"GLP-1RA represents a very important class of drugs for multiple cardiometabolic diseases; currently there is no approved orally available small molecule GLP-1RA. Small molecule GLP-1RA, such as ECC5004, could potentially offer many benefits including better convenience and ease of use compared to existing GLP-1RA therapies," said Jingye Zhou, Chief Executive Officer of Eccogene. "AstraZeneca has impressive global capabilities in clinical development and commercialization. This important collaboration between Eccogene and AstraZeneca will accelerate the development of ECC5004, a once daily, low dose, orally available small molecule GLP-1RA to benefit the millions of patients worldwide living with these diseases."

Sharon Barr, Executive Vice President, BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, said: "With the number of people living with cardiometabolic conditions and obesity today already over one billion, there is a need for continued innovation and next generation therapeutic options. Building on the promising Phase I clinical data generated by Eccogene, we believe this oral GLP-1RA molecule could offer alternatives to current injectable therapies both as a potential monotherapy as well as in combination for cardiometabolic diseases such as type-2 diabetes, as well as for obesity. ECC5004 further strengthens our existing pipeline addressing both incretin and non-incretin pathways, including our GLP-1/glucagon dual agonist [AZD9550] and long-acting amylin analogue [AZD6234]."

Under the terms of the agreement, Eccogene will receive an initial upfront payment of $185 million. In addition, Eccogene will be eligible to receive up to an additional $1.825

billion in future clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones. Eccogene is further eligible to receive tiered royalties on net product sales.

In exchange, AstraZeneca will receive exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Eccogene's ECC5004 small molecule GLP-1RA for any indication in all territories except China. Eccogene and AstraZeneca will partner for co-development and co-commercialization of ECC5004 in China.