From the perspective of license out buyers and sellers in the first half of the year, the buyers involved large multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, AbbVie, and Roche, while the sellers included not only traditional transformation pharmaceutical companies such as Hengrui Pharmaceutical, but also an increasing number of newly established biotech companies in recent years, such as Yilian Biotech, Anrui Biotech, and Borgward Pharma.

 

 

 

It is worth mentioning that many license out transactions exceed $1 billion in value. For example, in May of this year, Hengrui Pharmaceutical announced that it would license its GLP-1 class innovative drugs HRS-7535, HRS9531, and HRS-4729, which have independent intellectual property rights, to Hercules Corporation in the United States. The total down payment for this transaction, including Galileo, can reach up to 6 billion US dollars. As part of the consideration for the external licensing transaction, Hengrui will also acquire a 19.9% stake in Hercules Corporation in the United States.

 

 

 

On January 2, 2024, Roche announced a partnership with Yilian Biotech to jointly develop antibody coupled drug YL211 for the treatment of solid tumors. This collaboration focuses on mesenchymal transition factor and aims to develop the next generation of cancer treatment plans. According to the agreement, Roche will make a down payment and recent milestone payments of $50 million to Yilian Biotechnology, in addition to nearly $1 billion in potential milestone payments for development, registration, and commercialization, as well as gradient royalty fees based on global annual net sales in the future. It is reported that Roche has high hopes for YL211 and expects it to become the next ADC drug with sales of $1 billion.

 

 

 

In terms of transaction volume, Hanson Pharmaceutical has made frequent license out actions this year, reaching a total of three BD collaborations: in March, it expanded cooperation with Pumis on HS-20117 (EGFR/c-Met ADC) drug in the global cooperation area; In April, we reached cooperation with Tsuen Shin Biological to develop and commercialize HS-20137 monoclonal antibody in China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, China); In August, it obtained the rights and interests of Lupeng Pharmaceutical LP-168 (BTKi) in China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, China) with non tumor indications. As of now, the company has introduced a total of 11 innovative drug cooperation projects, of which 9 are in the clinical stage and the remaining 2 have entered the commercialization stage. At the same time, the company actively seeks opportunities for external licensing of its own pipeline products and has granted overseas licensing rights to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) HS-20089 (B7-H4 ADC) and HS-20093 (B7-H3 ADC), respectively.

 

 

 

It is not difficult to see that ADC is becoming a hot area for domestic pharmaceutical companies to expand cooperation. According to statistics, there were a total of 24 ADC trading cases worldwide in the first half of 2024, of which 10 involved Chinese pharmaceutical companies. At this year's ASCO conference, ADC companies from China announced 33 research results for 25 products. In addition, on April 3rd of this year, Pufang Biopharmaceutical (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. was acquired by Denmark's Genmab for $1.8 billion. Through this acquisition, Genmab will gain access to three clinical antibody conjugated drug (ADC) pipelines from Pufang Biopharmaceutical, as well as the company's innovative ADC technology platform. It is evident that the potential of domestic ADCs is increasingly being recognized by international enterprises.

 

 

 

Data shows that the global ADC drug market is huge and growing rapidly, expected to increase from $7.9 billion in 2022 to $64.7 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 30%, far higher than the expected 9.2% compound annual growth rate of the global biopharmaceutical market during the same period.