By Andrew Silver
July 8 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca will pay a subsidiary of Sino Biopharmaceutical $200 million upfront for the rights outside of China to an experimental chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) drug, the Chinese drugmaker said Wednesday.
COPD, a progressive lung disease that obstructs airflow and makes breathing difficult, was the third-leading cause of death worldwide with 3.4 million fatalities in 2023, according to the World Health Organization.
While major drugmakers that dominate the segment include AstraZeneca, GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim, a study of a phase II clinical trial in China for the drug, known as TQC3721, showed it was “novel” and “significantly improved lung function and symptoms” when compared with a placebo. The drug is made by Sino Biopharmaceutical subsidiary Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group.
The new partnership will “leverage AstraZeneca’s deep clinical development experience and respiratory expertise,” Sino Biopharmaceutical said in a filing to Hong Kong’s stock exchange.
“The Group is eligible to receive an upfront payment of $200 million, with additional development, regulatory and sales milestones, totalling up to $1.9 billion.”
In addition to granting AstraZeneca a license to develop, manufacture, and commercialize TQC3721 outside China, the agreement covers global rights for “certain future development programmes” that the filing did not detail.
Sharon Barr, AstraZeneca’s executive vice president for Biopharmaceuticals R&D, said in a statement that some people living with COPD “continue to experience exacerbations despite existing therapies” and TQC3721 might “provide patients with an important new treatment option”.
A spokesperson for AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to a request for comment on timelines for any future global studies.
AstraZeneca said in April its own experimental treatment tozorakimab showed a “meaningful reduction” in moderate-to-severe flare-ups of COPD in a late-stage trial, building on positive data from the month before.
The deal is the Sino Biopharmaceutical subsidiary’s second out-licensing transaction with a multinational pharmaceutical company this year. In March, it granted rights to Sanofi for the blood cancer drug rovadicitinib.
(Reporting by Andrew Silver in Shanghai; Additional reporting from Sneha Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda, Thomas Derpinghaus and Lincoln Feast.)
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