Bristol Myers Squibb has formed a broad partnership with Hengrui Pharma, paying $600 million upfront to advance 13 early-stage programs from across the two companies’ pipelines. The deal could be worth up to $15.2 billion.
The outlay, which includes $175 million payments on the first and second anniversaries of the deal, gives BMS ex-China rights to four oncology and hematology assets from Hengrui. BMS will jointly discover and develop a further five drug candidates. Option fees for joint discovery programs, plus the achievement of development, regulatory and commercial milestones for all programs, contribute to the total deal value.
BMS has granted Hengrui rights to four of its immunology assets in China, Hong Kong and Macau. The Shanghai-based biotech will be fully responsible for early development in humans to accelerate clinical proof of concept, BMS said.
Tapping capabilities across geographies could cut the time to early clinical insights and support informed decisions, Robert Plenge, M.D., Ph.D., chief research officer at BMS, said in a statement. Hengrui named (PDF) “efficient early-stage development expertise” among its contributions to the partnership.
Related
The comments appear to reflect evidence that drug candidates reach clinical proof of concept faster in China. The timeline from early discovery to clinical trial filing is 50% to 70% faster in China than the rest of the world, McKinsey found.
David Elkins, BMS’ chief financial officer, acknowledged China’s edge at a Citi investor event in December. Working in China is a “great way to get products into humans as quickly as possible to get to proof of concept, so it’s critically important to the development cycle,” Elkins said. The CFO also noted that China was on track to overtake the U.S. and become the biggest source of new clinical trial filings globally.
The Hengrui partnership gives BMS both a source of pipeline programs and the means to accelerate the early progress of those assets and some of its internal candidates. Hengrui, which has the option to co-develop certain assets and participate in commercialization globally, gains access to some of the fruits of BMS’ drug discovery engine, plus its partners’ global R&D, regulatory and commercial capabilities.
BMS’ inclusion of its own assets in the deal sets the agreement apart from Hengrui’s other alliances. Last year, GSK paid $500 million upfront to license one Hengrui candidate and secure options on 11 other programs. The deal, which is worth up to $12 billion, positioned Hengrui to advance the assets through phase 1. Hengrui also has deals with Kailera, Merck & Co. and Merck KGaA.
