Deals and Financings

LianBio, a Princeton-Shanghai in-licensing company, received a $465 million buyout offer from Tang Capital Management of San Diego (see story). In addition, Tang also offered shareholders a contingent value right (CVR) for 80% of net proceeds from any license or divestment of a LianBio holding. The offer is Tang’s fifth takeover target this year. The previous four companies have been biopharmas that are close to going out of business, while LianBio is in better shape. Recently, LianBio signed a deal worth $350 million upfront for China rights for mavacamten, a cardiomyopathy drug, to BMS, which already owned rest-of-the-world rights. 

Perpetual Medicines, a Shanghai-Boston AI startup, closed an $8 million seed financing to advance its integrated computational design and synthesis platform for peptide drug discovery (see story). The company plans to build a next-gen peptide drug discovery engine using the predictive power of computational physics methods and AI technologies combined with advanced synthetic chemistry. The platform will access what Perpetual calls the “vast, unexplored peptide chemical space.” Perpetual believes its platform will address previously undruggable targets. It said the seed financing would be enough to advance its candidates to clinical stage while building a preclinical portfolio in oncology, autoimmunity and metabolic indications. 

Accutar Biotech, a New Jersey-Shanghai AI drug discovery company, formed a partnership with Palo Alto’s Evommune, to discover novel small molecule drug candidates for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (see story). The partnership will combine Accutar’s proprietary AI platform with Evommune’s expertise in designing novel oral small molecule treatments for targets that are the root cause of chronic inflammatory diseases. Accutar starts its drug discovery using its AI computational drug design capability followed by wet lab validation to shorten drug discovery timelines. Previously, Accutar corroborated with Evommune on an autoimmune candidate that targets PKCθ. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. 

China’s Zhifei Biological (SHE: 300122), a vaccine maker, plans to expand into metabolic therapeutics by acquiring Chongqing Chenan Biopharma, a company with six metabolic drug candidates in clinical trials including late-stage candidates for diabetes and obesity (see story). Chenan’s GLP-1 derivative liraglutide and the insulin product degludec have completed Phase III trials. Founded in 2015, Chenan is 85% owned by Zhirui Investment. Chenan’s legal representative, Jiang Lingfeng, is the vice chairman of Zhifei and son of Zhifei’s de facto controller.  Gaoxia Zhang, who holds the remaining 15% of Chenan, has agreed to the sale. Financial details were not disclosed. 

South Korea’s DxVx plans to in-license China and South Korea rights for a novel anti-cancer vaccine from Oxford Vacmedix (OVM), a spin-out from Oxford University (see story). OVM-200 targets survivin, an apoptosis inhibitor that regulates cell division. The candidate uses OVM’s Recombinant Overlapping Peptide (ROP) technology to enhance immunity and vaccine efficacy. In Phase Ia tests, OVM-200 was safe and induced an immune response. DxVx, which owns 45% of OVM, plans to conduct Ib trials in China and South Korea that will be concurrent with OVM’s Ib trial. OVM and DxVx said negotiations on the in-licensing are at an advanced stage. 

Company News

Coherus Biosciences (NSDQ: CHRS) announced that it will set the US price for its in-licensed PD-1 drug, Loqtorzi, at a “modest” 20% discount to the industry leader, Merck’s Keytruda (see story). In 2021, Coherus in- licensed the drug from China’s Junshi Biosciences. The two partners received FDA approval of the drug last month to treat advanced nasopharyngeal cancers (NPC). Loqtorzi is the first China-developed PD-1 approved in the US. Coherus made the US FDA approval seem almost easy, a stark contrast to the rejection of the Lilly-Innovent PD-1 candidate, Tyvyt, earlier this year. 

AstraZeneca, a UK-Sweden big pharma, plans to build a major R&D center in Hong Kong that will be devoted to developing new cell and gene therapy drugs for global use (see story). The facility, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, will grow to 100 employees over five years. It will be located Hong Kong’s Lok Ma Chau Loop technology hub near the mainland China border. AstraZeneca’s R&D facility will be the first Hong Kong center for a top ten big pharma. 

Trials and Approvals

Shanghai Everest Medicines (HK: 1952) was approved for a China launch of Nefecon® to treat primary immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) in adults at risk of disease progression (see story). A rare disease, IgAN is especially prevalent in China. Patients with the disease are at risk of progressing to end-stage renal disease. Nefecon is a targeted-release formulation of budesonide, a second-generation synthetic corticosteroid. In 2019, Everest acquired greater China rights to the drug from Calliditas Therapeutics of Sweden in a $121 million agreement. Nefecon is already approved in the US and EU. 

Shanghai GenFleet Therapeutics reported China’s CDE has accepted for review the company’s NDA for a KRAS G12C inhibitor. It was also granted Priority Review (see story). GenFleet said GFH925 is its first NDA-stage product and China's first KRAS G12C inhibitor to start a NDA review. Based on Phase II results, GFH925 (IBI351) is seeking China approval as a second-line treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring KRAS G12C mutation. One year ago, GenFleet out-licensed greater China rights for GFH925 to Suzhou’s Innovent in a $312 million agreement that could expand to global rights for the candidate. 

Gracell Biotech, a Suzhou-San Diego CAR-T company, was approved to start a US Phase I/II clinical trial of its FasTCAR-T GC012F in patients with refractory systemic lupus erythematosus (rSLE) (see story). GC012F is an autologous CAR-T therapeutic candidate that dual-targets B cell maturation antigen (BCMA) and CD19. It uses Gracell’s proprietary FasTCAR next-day manufacturing platform. GC012F is already being evaluated in a Phase Ib/II IND study for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) in the US, and in four China IIT studies to treat rSLE, RRMM, newly-diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) and B-NHL. 

Disclosure: none.