LONDON—AstraZeneca Plc on Thursday struck a deal with the firm behind Imperial College London’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine to develop and sell drugs based on its self-amplifying RNA technology platform in other disease areas. Under the deal, VaxEquity, a startup founded by Imperial vaccinologist Robin Shattock, could receive up to $195 million if certain milestones are met, in addition to royalties on approved drugs and equity investment from AstraZeneca and life sciences investor Morningside Ventures. AstraZeneca already produces an adenoviral vector COVID-19 vaccine and emphasized the potential of the self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) technology in new therapeutic programs beyond the coronavirus pandemic. “This collaboration with VaxEquity adds a promising new platform to our drug discovery toolbox,” said AstraZeneca research chief Mene Pangalos. The technology works in a similar way to the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. However, a self-amplifying RNA vaccine not only encodes the instructions for the …