Eyes on Asia: UCB portfolio sale, Navigator bags $100m, Bora bulks out CDMO biz

UCB divestment

Belgium’s UCB announced plans to divest its entire current China five-drug portfolio, narrowing its China focus to commercialize soon-to-arrive late-stage clinical assets.

It will sell this “mature” neurology and allergy portfolio for $680 million to CBC Group, a Singapore healthcare investor, and its partner, Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi sovereign fund.

Meanwhile, UCB has eight neurology and immunology candidates in clinical development, most of them expected to report late-stage data before the end of 2024. The company plans to bring these assets to China, probably through partnerships.

YolTech’s liver base editing medicine

Shanghai’s YolTech Therapeutics sold China rights for its PCSK9-targeting base editing therapeutic to Shenzhen Salubris Pharma in a $145 million agreement.

YOLT-101 is a single-course, in vivo, liver base editing medicine that is designed to permanently inhibit the PCSK9 gene in the liver to reduce disease-driving LDL-C. The candidate is currently being evaluated in several China investigator led trials. YolTech will continue preclinical development of YOLT-101, while Salubris will be responsible for clinical trials in Mainland China. Y

olTech will receive $30 million upfront and up to $115 million in milestones, plus tiered royalties. 

Navigator’s $100m funding

New Jersey’s Navigator Medicines raised $100 million in an initial funding to develop an OX40L-targeted portfolio that was in-licensed from Korea’s IMBiologics.

RA Capital Management and Forbion, a Dutch life sciences investor, formed Navigator and initiated the agreement with IMBiologics earlier this year, signing a $995 million agreement for global rights (ex-Asia) to the immune disease candidates.

Last week, IMBiologics out-licensed China rights for the dual targeting molecule to Hangzhou’s Huadong Pharmaceutical in a $383 million agreement. IMBiologics is currently conducting a Phase I trial of the candidate in the US among healthy volunteers. 

Bora bulks out CDMO offering

Bora Pharmaceuticals, a Taiwan contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), continued its acquisition of US-based outsourcing manufacturing partners by acquiring a 30.5% share of San Diego, California-based Tanvex Biopharma.

Bora will pay for the acquisition with new shares, though it didn’t release further details.

The acquisition will extend Bora’s large-molecule CDMO services, adding 1,000 liter bioreactors to its own 500 liter devices. Bora also noted that the acquisition increases its US presence, preventing US government interference from the proposed US BIOSECURE Act, a cloud hanging over Chinese CDMOs that do business with US biopharmas. Bora will become Tanvex’s largest shareholder, and Bora Group Chairman Bobby Sheng will take over as Tanvex’s chairman in early 2025.

DualityBio’s ADC IPO

Shanghai DualityBio plans to conduct a Hong Kong IPO to support its portfolio of antibody drug conjugate (ADC) therapeutics for cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Founded in 2019, DualityBio has built an innovative and differentiated pipeline of 12 ADC candidates, discovered in-house. These include six clinical-stage ADCs aimed at indications with unmet medical needs, two next-generation bispecific ADCs (BsADCs) and one autoimmune ADC planned for clinical trials over the next two years.

The company has forged partnerships with BioNTech SE, BeiGene, Ltd. and Adcendo ApS with a total deal value of more than $4 billion.