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AstraZeneca said Friday it will buy up a group of early-stage gene therapies from Pfizer, bucking a trend of drugmakers axing programs and exiting a field that had once captured the imagination — and checkbooks — of many pharmaceutical executives.

AstraZeneca will pay Pfizer up to $1 billion plus royalties for the portfolio of treatments, none of which has entered clinical trials yet. The companies did not say how much it is paying upfront.

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The moves come six months after Pfizer said it would stop much of its work on early-stage gene therapy programs, in which researchers try to deliver replacement genes encased in small, non-pathogenic bugs called adeno-associated viruses, or AAVs. Instead, it would focus on newer technologies, such as gene editing.

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