AbbVie struck a big deal to enter the hot PD-1xVEGF bispecific space. Illumina's CEO detailed the company's efforts to work with authorities in China. Astellas' CEO updated the audience at Fierce JPM Week about the company's approach to dealmaking. Plus more.
1. AbbVie pens $5.6B pact with RemeGen to join PD-1xVEGF bispecific battle
After an AbbVie executive last year highlighted the company’s interest in PD-1xVEGF bispecifics, the Illinois drugmaker this week struck a major deal in the space. AbbVie has agreed to pay China’s RemeGen $650 million upfront and up to $4.95 billion in potential milestones for the ex-China rights to a bispecific called RC148. The deal positions AbbVie to contend with other major players such as Summit, Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb in the oncology bispecific arena.
Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference this week, Illumina CEO Jacob Thaysen detailed the company’s efforts to overcome last year’s China import ban. While authorities in China recently lifted the ban, the sequencing giant is still on the country’s Unreliable Entities List. Illumina execs “spent time in Q4 working with the Chinese officials to find a path through our current situation,” the CEO said. Thaysen said he’s hoping for a more “predictable” year in 2026.
Astellas CEO Naoki Okamura is keenly aware of the company’s upcoming patent expiration for Xtandi, but he’s not scrambling to do a major M&A deal. To hear Okamura tell it, the company will remain disciplined and follow its business development tenets. The drugmaker has a “healthy appetite for business development,” Okamura said, but it doesn’t view dealmaking as simply a means to scale the business. Instead, the company focuses on biology and promising technologies or platforms, he said.
Also at JPM this week, Fierce Biotech caught up with Takeda R&D head Andy Plump, M.D., Ph.D., to discuss the industry’s dealmaking spree over the last few months and how that pace contrasted with the slower-than-usual release of major news during the early part of the conference. During the wide-ranging discussion, the Takeda exec praised the “growth and innovation mindset” of Chinese drug regulators.
Speaking of the rapid pace of innovation in China, Novartis Chief Medical Officer and development president Shreeram Aradhye, M.D., told Fierce at JPM that it’s tough to make direct comparisons between the country and the United States. In the U.S., the healthcare system is much more fragmented, the Novartis executive said. “I hate talking about only speed in the context of any life sciences innovation, because it's a different ecosystem,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Novartis took a chance to scoop up new innovation this week by striking a deal worth up to $1.7 billion with Shanghai- and Maryland-based SciNeuro. In exchange for a $165 million upfront payment and the rest in potential milestones, Novartis gets a worldwide license to an antibody program designed to shuttle Alzheimer's disease therapies to the brain. “We are thrilled to collaborate with Novartis to continue [the program's] development, given their preeminent capabilities and commitment to next-generation therapies for neurodegenerative diseases,” SciNeuro CEO Min Li, Ph.D., said in a statement.
Other News of Note:
8. WuXi Biologics made an offer to purchase China-based CDMO BioDLink for up to HKK 2.8B ($360M) (Deal announcement)
9. Sino Biopharm inked a deal worth up to 1.2B yuan ($172M) to buy Hygieia Biomedical (Deal announcement)