The PD-1xVEGF dealmaking wave that has captivated Western pharma companies is now surging within China.
Tuesday, Sino Biopharmaceutical said it will pay up to $951 million to acquire Chinese compatriot LaNova Medicines, which has ongoing partnerships with Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca.
Sino Biopharma is buying the remaining 95.09% stake it doesn’t already hold in LaNova after investing about $20 million to obtain a 4.91% interest in November. As the Shanghai biotech has about $450 million cash on its balance sheet, the net payment is about $501 million, according to a securities filing (PDF)
LaNova became more widely known in November after Merck agreed to pay $588 million upfront and up to $2.7 billion in milestones for the biotech’s PD-1xVEGF bispecific antibody, LM-299, as a potential follow-on to the New Jersey pharma’s megablockbuster cancer drug Keytruda.
Then fueling the PD-(L)1xVEGF fanfare, Pfizer inked a $1.25 billion-upfront deal to license 3SBio’s PD-1xVEGF candidate SSGJ-707, and Bristol Myers Squibb pledged $3.5 billion upfront to co-develop and co-commercialize a PD-L11xVEGF bispecific by BioNTech. In all three transactions, the assets originated from Chinese companies.
In a securities filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Sino Biopharm highlighted LaNova’s antibody platforms, with focuses on the tumor microenvironment, targeted antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and T-cell engagers.
Besides LM-299, LaNova in 2023 licensed a GPRC5D-targeting ADC coded LM-305 to AstraZeneca in a deal potentially worth $600 million.
The antibody specialist also comes with a CCR8 antibody that’s undergoing a phase 2 registrational trial in China, plus a Claudin 18.2 ADC that’s in phase 3 development in the country, Sino Biopharm noted in its filing. Sino Biopharm already holds Chinese rights to the CCR8 asset as part of its previous 4.91% equity investment (PDF) in LaNova.
Other clinical candidates in LaNova’s pipeline include an anti-SIRPa antibody, a CTLA-4 tumor microenvironment-specific antibody, and two 4-1BB bispecifics separately targeting NaPi2b and CEACAM5, according to the company’s website.
The LaNova deal comes shortly after Sino Biopharm let go of another antibody-focused platform, F-star Therapeutics. The U.K. biotech announced three months ago that it has become a private, independent company, about two years after Sino Biopharm subsidiary invoX Pharma bought the firm in a protracted acquisition scrutinized by U.S. foreign investment authorities.
The Sino Biopharm-LaNova transaction can be viewed as another milestone in China’s biotech development history. While Chinese biotechs have been picked up in full-on acquisitions by foreign pharmas, such as AstraZeneca-Gracell Biotechnologies and BioNTech-Bioetheus, very few, if any, Chinese pharmas have bought out innovative domestic biotechs in the past.
As one of the largest drugmakers in China, Sino Biopharm recorded 28.9 billion Chinese yuan (about $4 billion) in total 2024 revenue, with about 37% from oncology medicines.