Recent Articles in Deals & Financings

ProfoundBio, a Seattle ADC company with an R&D facility in Suzhou, will be acquired by Copenhagen’s Genmab A/S in a $1.8 billion all-cash deal. The acquisition will expand Genmab’s drug portfolio, including three ProfoundBio clinical stage ADC candidates for solid tumors. The company’s three clinical stage assets target ovarian cancer and other FRα-expressing solid tumors. A privately owned company, ProfoundBio raised $112 million in a B Round financing earlier this year. ProfoundBio is led by CEO Baiteng Zhao, a former associate director at Seagen, a Seattle ADC company that was acquired by Pfizer for $43 billion in 2023. More details....

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China Medical System in-licensed povorcitinib, an oral JAK1 inhibitor, from San Francisco’s Incyte (NSDQ: INCY) for autoimmune and inflammatory dermatologic diseases. The candidate will be developed by CMS’s medical aesthetic subsidiary, CMS Skinhealth. The company will have rights to povorcitinib, a small molecule JAK1 inhibitor, in Greater China and eleven Southeast Asian countries, plus a non-exclusive license to manufacture the product for its territories. In late 2022, CMS acquired Greater China rights to another Incyte candidate, ruxolitinib cream, a novel cream formulation of the company’s selective JAK inhibitor ruxolitinib, also for autoimmune and inflammatory dermatologic diseases. More details....

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San Diego’s Avenzo Therapeutics closed a $150 million Series A-1 round to develop its lead program AVZ-021, a potentially best-in-class CDK2 selective inhibitor, currently in a Phase I/II trial in patients with HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and other advanced solid tumors. In January 2024, Avenzo acquired rights to the drug from Allorion Therapeutics, a Boston-Guangzhou biotech, in a deal worth over $1 billion ($40 million upfront). Allorion kept China rights to the drug. Allorion develops mutant selective and isoform-specific drugs in non-conventional ways for well-known targets to improve efficacy and prevent resistance. More details....

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Biocytogen Pharma (Beijing) will collaborate with ABL Bio of Korea to develop new bispecific antibody-drug conjugates (bsADCs). ABL says it is the first Korean pharma to have started clinical trials of its own bispecific.  Biocytogen will use its RenLite® mice platform to produce fully human antibody candidates with diverse epitopes and high affinity. The company has signed 50 therapeutic antibody and multiple clinical asset co-development/out-licensing/transfer agreements and established 42 target-nominated RenMice® licensing projects globally. More details....

Stock Symbols: (HK: 02315) (KOSDAQ: 298380)

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South Korea’s AriBio out-licensed China rights for AR1001, an Alzheimer’s disease candidate, in an agreement worth up to $770 million ($90 million upfront). The company acquiring the asset asked to remain anonymous because of the competition for Alzheimer’s drugs in China. AR1001 is an oral PDE5 inhibitor and originally a South Korean candidate for erectile dysfunction. In pre-clinical studies, AR1001 inhibited neuron apoptosis and restored synaptic plasticity, according to the company, and it has also shown the ability to reduce hyperphosphorylated tau proteins in a Phase II trial. More details....

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