Less than two months after Vor Bio telegraphed a strategic review, the former cell therapy biotech has made a surprise comeback with a potential $4 billion deal licensing a China-made autoimmune asset.
For $45 million upfront, Vor Bio is gaining ex-China rights to RemeGen’s telitacicept, a first-in-class recombinant dual-target fusion protein against BlyS (also known as BAFF) and APRIL designed to treat autoimmune diseases, the companies announced Wednesday.
The initial payment also includes $80 million of warrants that would give a RemeGen subsidiary a 23% stake in Vor at $0.0001 per share. Meanwhile, potential clinical and commercial milestones for RemeGen could reach $4.1 billion, according to a separate release from the Chinese company.
In response to the deal, the stock price of Nasdaq-listed Vor, which has been trading below $1 per share since March, more than doubled during premarket trading Thursday morning. In stark contrast, RemeGen’s stock price in Hong Kong dropped 18% Thursday local time.
For Vor, the deal comes as a pleasant surprise. The Boston-area biotech said in May that it was winding down existing clinical and manufacturing operations and laying off 95% of staffers, leaving just eight employees to search for strategic alternatives for the company. At that time, the biotech had two lead cell therapy assets in development for acute myeloid leukemia and cited a “challenging fundraising environment" as reasoning behind the decision.
Fast forward to today, alongside the licensing deal, Vor on Wednesday also unveiled a $175 million private placement backed by the biotech’s existing investor RA Capital Management, plus Mingxin Capital, Forbion, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Caligan Partners and NEXTBio.
With a new direction, Vor on Wednesday named Jean-Paul Kress, M.D., as its new CEO, with former leader Robert Ang resigning. Kress was most recently CEO of MorphoSys before steering the company’s $2.9 billion buyout by Novartis last year. He had also served a brief stint at Syntimmune before AstraZeneca’s Alexion took it over in 2018 for $400 million upfront.
For RemeGen, the situation is more complicated. Even though the $4 billion total value of the Vor transaction looks appealing, the heavily back-loaded deal structure for a fast-growing drug already approved in China seems to be a source of disappointment for investors.
The relatively small upfront amount is likely drawing a painful Hengrui-Aiolos déjà vu for Chinese biotech investors.
Aiolos Bio emerged in 2023 with a long-acting anti-TSLP antibody licensed from China’s Jiangsu Hengrui Pharma for $21.5 million upfront. Then merely two months later, Aiolos sold itself to GSK for $1 billion upfront with the phase 2-ready asthma candidate as the centerpiece.
Still, at least the 23% stake will allow RemeGen to capture some of the financial windfall were Vor to be sold to a Big Pharma firm.
The $45 million upfront payment pales in comparison to the $200 million that Seagen paid RemeGen in 2021 for the Chinese company’s HER2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) disitamab vedotin. The Seagen deal, which could reach $2.6 billion in total value, vaulted RemeGen onto the global biotech stage.
Besides its first-in-class potential, telitacicept is much more advanced in development than disitamab vedotin was when the respective deals were signed. Seagen secured the ADC two months after a conditional nod in China in third-line stomach cancer.
By comparison, telitacicept is approved in China for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis and generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG). A global phase 3 in gMG is already underway with its first patient in the U.S. enrolled in August 2024. In addition, an international phase 3 in SLE is “ready,” and the company also has FDA clearance to launch a phase 3 in primary Sjögren’s syndrome, according to RemeGen’s annual report.
In a China phase 3 gMG study, telitacicept showed a 4.8-point improvement on a patient functions scale called MG-ADL compared to placebo at 24 weeks. About 98% of patients had absolute MG-ADL improvements of at least three points.
For reference, the FDA just approved Johnson & Johnson’s anti-FcRn antibody Imaavy in certain people living with gMG after showing a 1.5-point difference on MG-ADL relative to placebo at week 24. However, direct cross-trial comparisons should be made with caution given various differences in trial design.
Because telitacicept targets two cell-signaling molecules critical for B-lymphocyte development—BlyS and APRIL—the drug can effectively reduce B-cell-mediated autoimmune responses that are implicated in several autoimmune diseases, according to RemeGen.
Telitacicept has become RemeGen’s main market value driver. Since a 2021 launch, telitacicept’s annual sales exceeded 1.5 million doses in 2024, according to the company.
Disitamab vedotin, while still seeing revenue growth in China, is under pressure after AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s rival HER2 ADC Enhertu began to receive global recognition. The RemeGen drug’s status was evident in the $200 million impairment charges that Pfizer took on the asset in the fourth quarter of 2024.
RemeGen investors are also likely not happy about telitacicept’s new partner, Vor.
While touting multiple positive data points for telitacicept at the European Renal Association annual congress in early June, RemeGen highlighted how the drug drew interest from several business development managers from large multinational pharma companies. RemeGen’s stock price had shot up 20% on June 12 following that statement.