AstraZeneca acquires SixPeaks for up to 300 million US dollars

SixPeaks Bio AG, which is headquartered at Tech Park Basel, has been part of AstraZeneca since the end of October 2025. As the British pharma group recently announced in its Q3 2025 report, it has paid 170 million US dollars to complete the acquisition. Another 30 million dollars will be due in two years’ time, with AstraZeneca agreeing to pay an extra 100 million dollars upon achieving certain pre-defined milestones.

The SixPeaks’ origin story begins in May 2024 when it emerged from a two-year stealth mode following a Series A funding round in the amount of 30 million US dollars, which was led by the Basel-based venture capital firm Versant Ventures, whose Ridgeline Discovery Engine deployed the resources to found SixPeaks in 2022. They jointly conjugated an activin IIA/B receptor antibody with a GLP-1 peptide, which ultimately created a therapy that allows obesity patients to lose weight without experiencing muscle loss.

In parallel with last year’s financing, SixPeaks entered into a strategic partnership with the pharma group based in Cambridge in the UK. This encompassed a commitment of up to 80 million US dollars in non-dilutive financing in addition to an exclusive option for AstraZeneca to acquire SixPeaks. AstraZeneca’s development capacities and commitment to the obesity therapies space made the company the “partner of choice”, as SixPeaks CEO Philip Larsen explained in a press release at the time. The British company has now exercised its purchase option.