China’s rising biotech clout on show in flurry of billion-dollar licensing deals

Chinese drugmakers have signed a late-year burst of out-licensing agreements with overseas partners, underlining China’s growing role as a source of novel medicines as multinational pharma groups hunt for new assets.\nJacobio Pharmaceuticals said it expected to receive an upfront payment of US$100 million from AstraZeneca, according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on December 21.\nThe British-Swedish drugmaker was paying for exclusive rights to research, develop, register, manufacture and commercialise Jacobio’s experimental cancer therapy JAB-23E73 in markets worldwide, excluding mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.\nJacobio could also earn up to US$1.92 billion in milestone payments linked to development, regulatory and commercial targets, and would receive tiered royalties on sales.\nJAB-23E73 is an oral pill designed to inhibit KRAS, a mutated protein that can fuel tumour growth, while sparing closely related “good” proteins – an approach intended to reduce side effects.\nThe drug is currently in Phase I human trials in China and the United States.\nCoherent Biopharma, meanwhile, had also struck a cross-border partnership, signing an exclusive licensing deal on December 22 with US-based MultiValent Biotherapies for CBP-1018, a prostate cancer candidate.\nUnder the agreement, MultiValent gained exclusive rights to develop and commercialise CBP-1018 outside Greater China, while Coherent would receive an upfront payment of US$20 million and a 20 per cent equity stake in MultiValent.\nThe deal also included potential milestone payments of up to about US$2 billion and tiered royalties on future sales.\n\nThe latest transactions reflect a broader pattern of multinational drugmakers turning to Chinese biotechs for pipeline replenishment, particularly as the industry grapples with pricing pressure and looming patent expiries.\n“We remain bullish on China’s biotech out-licensing trend, though sizeable deals may be light over the next six to eight months, as biotechs accumulate more clinical data or await assets to enter later stage,” said Cui Cui, head of Asia healthcare research at Jefferies, in a recent note.\n“Multinational drug corporations face mounting pressure from drug pricing and patent cliffs, while Chinese firms continue to prove quality and efficiency after a decade of effort,” she added.\nEarlier this month, Harbour BioMed also teamed up with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) in a multi-year global partnership focused on discovering and developing next-generation multi-specific antibodies – drugs engineered to bind to more than one target on cancer cells to enhance therapeutic effect.\nUnder the agreement announced on December 17, Harbour BioMed would work with BMS to advance multi-specific antibody discovery programmes in return for US$90 million in upfront payments, potential milestone payments of up to US$1 billion, and tiered royalties if BMS elected to pursue the programmes.\nChina has been rolling out policies aimed at bolstering homegrown biopharmaceutical groups as out-licensing activity gathers pace.\nAuthorities have identified biomanufacturing as a future economic pillar, and the country has also introduced its first commercial insurance “innovative drug list”, part of an effort to improve access and affordability for a population of more than 1.4 billion.\n