AstraZeneca agreed a multi‑year collaboration valued at up to $555 million with Algen Biotechnologies to use Algen’s AlgenBrain platform — a CRISPR‑AI functional genomics system — to identify novel therapeutic targets in immunology. The deal grants AstraZeneca exclusive rights to develop and commercialize therapies against targets discovered under the partnership. Algen’s platform couples high‑throughput gene modulation with AI to link functional outcomes to disease‑relevant cell models. AstraZeneca framed the tie‑up as a data‑driven route to human‑biology‑first target selection and the agreement underscores pharma’s growing reliance on integrated AI and functional genomics to accelerate early discovery.