AstraZeneca

A global biopharmaceutical company that developed acalabrutinib and sponsored the Phase 3 AMPLIFY trial. - Manufacturer of acalabrutinib (Calquence); sponsor of the AMPLIFY trial

For decades, patients diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia—the most common adult leukemia in Western countries, affecting roughly 23,000 Americans each year—faced a difficult choice: endure rounds of intravenous chemotherapy with harsh side effects, or take targeted pills indefinitely, sometimes for life. On February 20, 2026, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a combination of two oral drugs, venetoclax and acalabrutinib, that eliminates both burdens. Patients take pills for roughly one year, then stop. In a trial of 867 patients, 77% remained cancer-free at three years.

Updated Feb 20

British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant investing heavily in AI integration across oncology research and development. - Developing AI-powered oncology drug development infrastructure

For decades, cancer drug trials have failed at a rate exceeding 95%—burning through $50-60 billion annually on treatments tested in patients who were never likely to respond. On April 17, 2025, researchers from AstraZeneca and Tempus AI published results in Cancer Cell showing that the Predictive Biomarker Modeling Framework (PBMF)—a machine learning system using contrastive learning—can identify, from existing clinical data, which cancer patients will survive longer on immunotherapy versus chemotherapy. Applied retrospectively to completed phase 3 trials, the system improved survival outcomes by 15% compared to traditional patient selection.

Updated Feb 11