Week in Review: China's Biopharmas Announce $2.5 Billion in Deals

Deals and Financings

• KBP Biosciences, a Singapore-China company, sold global rights for its novel late-stage hypertension candidate to Denmark’s Novo Nordisk in an agreement worth up to $1.3 billion;
• Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine out-licensed global rights (ex-China) for its anti-PD-1 antibody to New Jersey’s Elevar Therapeutics in a $1 billion deal;
• Shanghai EpimAb Bio sold the rights to use its proprietary Fabs-In-Tandem Immunoglobulin (FIT-Ig®) platform to Barcelona’s Almirall in a $210 million agreement;
• Shanghai Belief BioMed out-licensed China commercialization rights to Takeda China for its lead candidate, an AAV gene therapy for hemophilia B;
• SparX Group, a Chicago company with China subsidiaries, announced that its Claudin 18.2 mAb will be part of an off-the-shelf CAR-iNKT cell therapy developed by South Africa’s Arovella;

Company News

• WuXi Biologics, a global CRDMO headquartered in Shanghai, launched a bioprocessing platform, WuXiUI™, with a 3 to 6-fold increase in productivity and a 60-80% savings in cost;

Trials and Approvals

• Beijing CANbridge Pharma reported China’s NMPA accepted for review its NDA for pruritus, a rare disease, in patients who are at least two months old;
• Beijing’s BeiGene reported positive data from a global Phase III trial of its anti-PD-1, tislelizumab, in patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma;
• Suzhou Ascentage Pharma dosed the first patient in a China Phase III trial of its lead drug, olverembatinib, in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia;
• Shanghai Skyline Therapeutics was approved to start China clinical trials of an AAV gene therapy aimed at neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
  
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