Week in Review: Mundipharma Considers $1 Billion Sale of China Operations

Deals and Financings

• Mundipharma, an international drugmaker headquartered in Cambridge, UK, is considering selling its China operations in a deal that could be worth $1 billion;
• Oramed Pharma, a New York-Israel biopharma, plans to form a $60 million JV with Hefei Tianhui Biotech to commercialize Oramed's oral drug delivery products globally;
• Suzhou Xinkanghe Biomedical raised $14 million in a Series B+ round to advance its pipeline of immunology programs for cancer and autoimmune diseases;
• CirCode Biomed, a Shanghai circular RNA company, signed a research agreement with Pfizer to translate circular RNA technology into viable drug candidates;
• California’s ABVC Biopharma out-licensed China rights for two plant-based norepinephrine transporter inhibitors targeting neurological conditions to Xinnovation Therapeutics of Jiaxing City;
• CASI Pharma, a Maryland-Beijing biopharma, acquired China distribution rights to Folotyn® (pralatrexate), a lymphoma drug, from Mundipharma International;

Trials and Approvals

• Transcenta Holding of Suzhou was approved to start a China Phase II trial of blosozumab, an anti-sclerostin mAb, to treat osteoporosis;
• Zhejiang Doer Biologics started a Phase Ib trial of its first-in-class, tri-specific agonist for obesity and hypertriglyceridemia;
• LianBio dosed the first patient in a Phase I trial of an SHP2 inhibitor, in combination with AstraZeneca’s osimertinib, an EGFR inhibitor, for NSCLC;
• Nanjing Leads Biolabs was approved to start China and US trials of LBL-034, an anti-GPRC5D/CD3 bispecific antibody aimed at treating multiple myeloma.
  
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