BMS will be signing in as the second most powerful partner to be added to the 2025 healthcare business list, following the Chinese biotech's fruitful business deal with AstraZeneca in March, worth $4.68 billion. In this race, the bidding is still making the headlines as Bristol Myers Squibb has offered a $1 billion deal to enter Harbour BioMed’s multi-specific antibodies. This has generated a continuous chain representing the trend of Big Pharma landing at China’s doorstep for innovation.
According to the terms and conditions of this agreement, as discussed on Tuesday. The BMS will be crediting a $90 million upfront payment to the Chinese biotech account for valuable collaboration regarding advancing and establishing multi-specific antibody therapies. The additional details of this agreement are meagre as both partners haven’t yet clearly mentioned other pointers.
For now, the pharma will be pinned for around $1.035 billion in marketing and development milestones. The Harbour and BMS haven’t yet clearly revealed how many antibody programs they will be working on or what therapeutic or evidence they want to identify.
The CEO, Jingsong Wang, said, “During Tuesday’s agreement meeting, the center of attraction was the Harbour’s exclusive Harbour Mice platform, which creates biologics with improved and excellent therapeutic potential.” The company claims that this technology holds the potential to generate bispecific antibodies with the powerful tumor-eliminating activity or potent inflammatory or therapeutic immunological effects.
Just like BMS, many other healthcare giants have been approaching China for novel therapies. In October, Gilead’s subsidiary Kite cracked a deal with Pregene for $120 million. The pharma confirmed that $1.52 billion will be credited to the partner's account upon meeting the desired level of milestones and royalties as well. The detailed priority targets are not revealed yet.
As observed the AstraZeneca has travelled to China many times. Since July, it has lined up $5.3 billion for an AI-determined pact with CSPC, targeting oral therapies for disruptive chronic diseases.
Now, along with AstraZeneca and Gilead, the BMS has also stood beside biopharma in a dealmaking purpose, but the contribution counts the same. In the 2025s’ start, the industry invested around $48 billion into China, which has almost overflowed the biopharma’s overall Chinese investments in 2024. Alongside, Pfizer’s $6 billion deal for 3SBio’s PD-1/VEGF antibody is also marked as the popular deal of the year so far.
Mansi Kadam is a market research writer with over 3 years of experience analyzing trends in the healthcare industry. At Towards Healthcare, she covers innovations in medical sector, sustainability initiatives, and the evolving regulatory landscape.
