License in is still a major means for local pharmaceutical companies to deploy innovative drugs

[Pharmaceutical Network Market Analysis] On April 25, Chia Tai Tianqing announced that the company and Anyuan Pharmaceutical have reached a strategic cooperation on the rights development and commercialization of the latter's two innovative drugs AP025 and AP026 in China and some Asian regions.
The two drugs are used to treat patients with NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) and T2DM (type 2 diabetes) respectively.
According to data from Minet.
com, the market size of this category of drugs in China's public medical institutions will exceed 100 billion yuan in 2020
.

At present, AP025 has launched Phase I clinical trials in China, AP026 has launched Phase I clinical trials abroad, and plans to apply for IND (New Drug Research Application) in 2022 in China
.

According to the cooperation agreement, Anyuan Pharmaceuticals will receive up to 342 million yuan in down payments and milestone payments, as well as single-digit tiered royalties on net sales
.

License-in is called "license introduction", which is a method of product introduction, that is, the product introduction party pays a certain down payment to the authorized party, and agrees a certain amount of milestone fees and future sales commissions according to the development progress of the product, so as to obtain the product in the future.
Commercialization rights for research and development, production and sales in certain territories
.

 　　In the domestic market, the license in model has become very popular in recent years, and it has become a major way for local pharmaceutical companies to deploy innovative drugs
.

In the first quarter of this year, there were many license in transactions in China
.

 　　For example, Huadong Medicine has frequently introduced products since February, including a cooperation with AKSO Biopharmaceutical, Inc.
(AKSO), which plans to obtain a dual-target fusion protein targeting PD-L1/L2 and IL15 in the preclinical development stage of 100 million yuan.
Exclusive clinical development and commercialization rights of AB002 (for solid tumor treatment) in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan); cooperation with Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals (UK), Ltd.
(Kiniksa) to acquire ARCALYST and Mavrilimumab for nearly US$700 million Exclusive development, production and commercialization rights of global innovative autoimmune products in Asia Pacific (China, South Korea and Australia and 18 other countries, excluding Japan); cooperation with Heidelberg Pharma to obtain HDP-101, The exclusive development and commercialization rights of HDP-103 in 20 Asian countries and regions including mainland China; The promotion rights of 26 provinces in mainland China have reached cooperation
.

It is reported that Utilidron is the first domestic epothilone antitumor innovative drug independently developed by Huahao Zhongtian, which has been approved for the treatment of recurrent or metastatic advanced breast cancer
.

At present, the drug has been included in the "CSCO Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines (2021 Edition)" and "China's Standardized Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines for Advanced Breast Cancer (2020 Edition)"
.

 　　On February 20, Sinovac Pharma announced that the company has reached a cooperation with Antaiwei to obtain the global intellectual property rights of a viral polymerase (RdRp) inhibitor SHEN26, which is undergoing preclinical pharmaceutical and process development, and subsequent R&D, commercialization rights
.

According to the agreement, Antaiwei can obtain a down payment of 20 million yuan and certain research and development milestone payments, totaling 100 million yuan
.

 　　From the perspective of the industry, license in is still a major means for local pharmaceutical companies to deploy innovative drugs.
The introduction of innovative projects by pharmaceutical companies through the license in model can further enrich the product line and solve the dilemma of insufficient innovation
.

However, compared with the license out transaction situation, which represents the innovation capability of domestic new drugs, there is still a big gap in innovation of domestic drugs
.

This shows that domestic innovative drug companies still need to strengthen the realization of "self-hematopoiesis" in order to truly improve their competitiveness
.

 　　Disclaimer: Under no circumstances does the information or opinions expressed in this article constitute investment advice to anyone
.