Pharmaceutical Business in China and Worldwide (October)(2023)

1.   On October 8, Hengrui Pharmaceutical announced that it has reached a cooperation with Dr. Reddy's Laboratory (Dr. Reddy's) in India on pyrotinib, according to the agreement, Dr. Reddy's will obtain the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize pyrotinib (trade name: Arenai) in India. Pyrotinib is an oral HER1, HER2 and HER4 tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) independently developed by Hengrui and with intellectual property rights, and is the first anti-HER1/HER2/HER4 targeted drug independently developed in China.

2.   On October 10, Simcere announced that it has entered into a cooperation agreement with Andicon Biotech for ADC189, according to which Simcere will obtain the exclusive commercialization rights of the product for the indication of influenza (influenza) in China. ADC189 is an anti-influenza polymerase acid protein (PA) inhibitor.

3.   On October 11, Biopharmaceutical announced that it has reached a cooperation with ArovellaTherapeutics to jointly develop the world's first "ready-to-use" CAR-iNKT cell therapy。 The collaboration will authorize Arovella to use the monoclonal antibody sequence against the tumor-specific antigen Claudin18.2 (CLDN18.2), which has already entered the clinical stage, to provide a targeted molecular structure for the development of Arovella's CAR-iNKT cell therapy.

4.   On October 12, EpimAb and Almirall jointly announced that they have entered into a licensing agreement for the development of bispecific antibodies for up to three undisclosed targets. Under the terms of the agreement, Almirall will receive exclusive global rights to the bispecific antibodies to be generated, developed and commercialized using EpimAb's proprietary Fabs-In-Tandem Immunoglobulin (FIT-Ig) platform technology.

5.   On October 12, MediLink Therapeutics announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation and global licensing agreement with BioNTech, which is pioneering new therapies for cancer and other serious diseases. The two companies will collaborate on the development of next-generation antibody-drug drug conjugate product candidates (ADCs) targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER3).

6.   On October 16, Novo Nordisk and KBP announced that Novo Nordisk has agreed to acquire ocedurenone, a hypertension control drug for cardiovascular and kidney disease, from KBPBiosciences for up to $1.3 billion. Ocedurenone is an oral, small-molecule nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (nsMRA) that is currently in the Phase III CLARION-CKD trial for the treatment of patients with uncontrolled hypertension and advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD).

7.   On October 17, Hengrui Pharmaceutical announced that it has reached a cooperation agreement with Elevar of the United States, and Elevar will obtain the exclusive right to develop and commercialize camrelizumab in combination with apatinib for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide except Greater China and South Korea. Camrelizumab is a PD-1 monoclonal antibody independently developed by Hengrui Pharmaceutical and with intellectual property rights.

8.   On October 19, Mablink Bioscience, an ADC company, announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Eli Lilly. Under the terms of the agreement, Eli Lilly will acquire Mablink and acquire the latter's ADC products and technology platform under development. However, the company has not disclosed the specific financial terms of the transaction. Mablink's primary technology platform (PSARLink) is based on a unique type of linker whose unique structure masks cytotoxic molecules, providing a "stealth" property to Mablink's ADCs.

9.   On October 19, Merck and Daiichi Sankyo announced that they have agreed on three DXd antibody drug conjugates from Daiichi Sankyo(ADC) drug candidates patritumab deruxtecan (HER3-DXd), ifinatamab deruxtecan (I-DXd) and raludotatug deruxtecan (R-DXd) have entered into global development and commercialization agreements. The two companies will jointly develop these ADC drug candidates for potential global commercialization, and Daiichi Sankyo will retain exclusive rights and be solely responsible for the manufacturing and supply of the three drug candidates in Japan.

10.  On October 19, Alebund Pharmaceuticals announced that it has signed a commercialization agreement with Roche. Rebund will exclusively promote methoxyethylene glycol recombinant human erythropoietin injection, a long-acting erythropoietin (ESA) that needs to be administered once a month for the treatment of chronic kidney disease-related anemia, in Chinese mainland.

11.  On October 24, LianBio signed an agreement with BMS to grant the latter exclusive rights to develop and commercialize mavacamten in Greater China (Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), Singapore and Thailand. Mavacamten is a selective, allosteric reversible inhibitor of cardiac myosin for the treatment of symptomatic adult patients with New York Heart Association (NYHA) class II.-III obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM) cardiac function to improve functional capacity and symptoms.

12.  On October 27, Henlius entered into a collaboration agreement with Intas Pharmaceuticals to authorize Intas to exclusively develop and commercialize the PD-1 antibody serplulimab in multiple indications and specific dosage forms in Europe and India, including extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC).