Our News

Business Development and Licensing Select Deal Highlights

We are active in dealmaking worldwide.

Mergers & Acquisitions:

September 2021   Acquisition of Acceleron, a publicly traded company with a potentially first-in-class therapy in phase 3 development for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
February 2021   Acquisition of Pandion Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics designed to address the unmet needs of patients living with autoimmune diseases.
November 2020   Acquisition of OncoImmune, a privately-held, clinical-stage company including lead therapeutic candidate CD24Fc for the treatment of patients with severe and critical COVID-19.
November 2020   Acquisition of VelosBio, a privately held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class cancer therapies targeting receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 1 (ROR1) including VLS-101, an investigational antibody-drug conjugate to treat hematological malignancies and solid tumors.
May 2020   Acquisition of Themis, a company with a broad pipeline of vaccine candidates and immune-modulatory therapies, with a focus on the development and global scale-up of their SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate.
December 2019   Acquisition of ArQule, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on kinase inhibitor discovery and development for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. ArQule’s lead investigational candidate, ARQ 531, is a novel, oral Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor currently in a Phase 2 dose expansion study for the treatment of B-cell malignancies.
November 2019   Acquisition of Calporta Therapeutics, Calporta’s preclinical stage TRPML1 agonists are being evaluated for their potential to treat various lysosomal storage and neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
June 2019   Acquisition of Tilos Therapeutics, a privately held biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics targeting the latent TGFβ complex for the treatment of cancer, fibrosis and autoimmune diseases.
May 2019   Acquisition of Peloton, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel small molecule therapeutic candidates targeting hypoxia-inducible factor-2α (HIF-2α) for the treatment of patients with cancer and other non-oncology diseases. Peloton’s lead candidate is PT2977, a novel oral HIF-2α inhibitor in late-stage development for renal cell carcinoma (RCC).
February 2019   Acquisition of Immune Design, a late-stage immunotherapy company employing next-generation in vivo approaches to enable the body’s immune system to fight disease. The company’s proprietary technologies, GLAAS® and ZVex®, are engineered to activate the immune system’s natural ability to generate and/or expand antigen-specific cytotoxic immune cells to fight cancer and other chronic diseases.
February 2018   Acquisition of Viralytics, a company focused on oncolytic immunotherapy treatments for a range of cancers including CAVATAK® (CVA21), an investigational oncolytic immunotherapy that has been shown to preferentially infect and kill cancer cells.

Research Collaborations & Licenses:

January 2022   Research collaboration with Absci to leverage their Deep Learning-Enabled Drug Creation™ and Bionic Protein™ technologies.
January 2022   Expanded collaboration with Aligos Therapeutics to develop Oligonucleotide therapies for NASH.
January 2022   Yumanity’s achievement of a research milestone for the joint amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) / frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTLD) program triggered a milestone payment to Yumanity and the awarding of a research grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to accelerate early proof-of-concept testing of a promising Parkinson’s disease therapy.
November 2021   Research collaboration and license agreement with Synthekine to leverage their proprietary platform to discover, develop, and commercialize novel cytokine therapeutics.
October 2021   Option agreement with ONSSI Corporation for ONS-1, which is in preclinical development.
October 2021   Collaboration agreement with Xeris Biopharma with an option to license their XeriJect™ for use with undisclosed monoclonal antibodies for the purpose of engineering ultra-high concentration, ready-to-use formulations.
September 2021   Illumina partnership to develop and commercialize companion diagnostic and research tests for use in identifying specific cancer mutations.
April 2021   Voluntary licensing agreements with five Indian generics manufacturers to accelerate and expand global access to Molnupiravir, an investigational oral therapeutic for the treatment of COVID-19.
March 2021   Strategic collaboration with Amathus Therapeutics to develop novel small molecule therapeutic candidates for neurodegenerative diseases.
March 2021   Collaboration Agreement with M2GEN to provide valuable patient-consented, de-identified, linked clinical and genomic data in support of our oncology efforts.
March 2021   Agreement with Gilead Sciences to jointly develop and commercialize long-acting, investigational treatment combinations of lenacapavir and islatravir with the potential to provide new, meaningful treatment options for people living with HIV.
February 2021   Research collaboration with Immunethep for the development of potential innovative immunotherapies for bacterial infections.
February 2021   Research agreement with Starpharma to conduct a preclinical research evaluation of dendrimer based Antibody Drug Conjugates utilizing Starpharma’s proprietary DEP® technology.
January 2021   Artiva Biotherapeutics exclusive worldwide collaboration and license agreement to develop candidate CAR-NK cell therapies targeting solid tumor-associated antigens.
December 2020   Collaboration agreement with A2 Biotherapeutics to develop allogeneic cell therapies for solid tumor cancers.
December 2020   Strategic collaboration and license agreement with Janux Therapeutics to discover, develop and commercialize innovative, next generation T cell engager immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.
December 2020   Exclusive license and research collaboration agreement with Aligos Therapeutics to discover and develop an oligonucleotide therapy for NASH.
October 2020   Research collaboration with Intec Pharma in drug delivery.
September 2020   Strategic collaborations with Seattle Genetics to co-develop and co-commercialize their antibody-drug conjugate Ladiratuzumab Vedotin globally and exclusive license and co-development agreement to accelerate global reach of TUKYSA for HER2-postive cancers in regions outside the United States, Canada and Europe.
August 2020   Exclusive licensing agreement with Hanmi Pharmaceutical for the development, manufacture and commercialization of efinopegdutide, Hanmi’s investigational once-weekly glucagon-like peptide-1/glucagon receptor dual agonist, for the treatment of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.
July 2020   Research collaboration with IRBM to identify and develop novel peptide therapeutics active against different strains of coronavirus, including SARS-CoV-2.
July 2020   Research Collaboration with The Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) to investigate drugs for treating COVID-19.
July 2020   Collaboration with Dewpoint Therapeutics to apply their proprietary platform for condensate-based drug discovery to the development of a novel mechanism for the treatment of HIV.
July 2020   Strategic collaboration with Foghorn Therapeutics to discover and develop novel therapeutics against a transcription factor target believed to be relevant to a broad range of cancer patients.
July 2020   Collaboration and license agreement with Zymeworks to develop multispecific antibody therapeutic candidates.
June 2020   Collaboration agreement with PeptiDream for the discovery and development of novel peptide therapeutics capable of neutralizing both the current SARS-CoV-2 virus and potential future Coronavirus outbreaks.
June 2020   Strategic research collaboration and license agreement with Yumanity Therapeutics focused on accelerating the development of new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
May 2020   The company exercised its option to utilize Vaxxas’ proprietary High Density Microarray Patch (HD-MAP) platform for a vaccine candidate. The company also retains an option to license the HD-MAP technology for two additional vaccines.
May 2020   Collaboration with IAVI to develop an investigational vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 to be used for the prevention of COVID-19.
May 2020   Ridgeback Biotherapeutics collaboration agreement to develop EIDD-2801, an orally available antiviral candidate currently in early clinical development for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.
May 2020   Expansion of strategic collaboration with Skyhawk Therapeutics to discover, develop and commercialize small molecules that modulate RNA splicing. The collaboration now spans four disease areas: neurodegeneration, oncology, autoimmunity, and metabolic diseases.
April 2020   Research collaboration with Almac Discovery focusing on the generation of novel small molecule inhibitors against specified Deubiquitinase (DUB) targets for the treatment of a range of neurodegenerative and other diseases.
April 2020   Research collaboration with the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) to investigate and define the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 and identify targets for medicines and vaccines.
March 2020   Dragonfly Therapeutics expansion of strategic collaboration to discover, develop and commercialize a number of Dragonfly’s candidate natural killer (“NK”) cell engager immunotherapies for oncology, infectious disease, and immune disorders.
February 2020   Strategic research collaboration with Atreca to identify the antigenic targets of select antibodies with potential utility in oncology.
January 2020   Just – Evotec Biologics expanded collaboration regarding the development of innovative technologies for the production of biologics of the highest quality.
January 2020   Taiho and Astex research collaboration and license agreement focused on the development of small molecule inhibitors against several drug targets, including the KRAS oncogene, which are currently being investigated for the treatment of cancer.
November 2019   Global Collaboration with Promega  to develop their microsatellite instability (MSI) technology as an on-label, solid tumor companion diagnostic (CDx) for use with our anti-PD-1 therapy, KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab).
October 2019   4D Pharma research collaboration and option to license agreement  to discover and develop Live Biotherapeutics for vaccines.
August 2019   Collaboration agreement with The Francis Crick Institute  to understand the causes of motor neurone disease and identify potential targets for future treatments.
August 2019   License and research collaboration with Themis Bioscience  for the discovery and development of undisclosed vaccine candidates using Themis’ measles virus vector-based platform.
August 2019   Harvard University collaboration to discover novel aspects of the immune system that may be targeted in future treatments for cancer.
July 2019   Collaboration agreement with Skyhawk Therapeutics, to discover, develop and commercialize small molecules that modulate RNA splicing. Skyhawk’s proprietary SkySTAR™ technology platform will be employed to discover and develop innovative RNA-binding small molecules designed to selectively modify RNA splicing, as a new modality for the potential treatment of certain neurological diseases and cancer.
March 2019   Collaboration and license deal with King’s College London and Wellcome  focused on developing solutions for chronic pain, an area of huge unmet clinical need.
January 2019   The company exercised its option to license NGM’s NGM313,  an investigational monoclonal antibody agonist of the β-Klotho/FGFR1c receptor complex that is currently being evaluated for the treatment of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and type 2.
January 2019   License and collaboration agreement with Cocrystal Pharma  to discover and develop certain proprietary influenza A/B antiviral agents.
January 2019   Licensing agreement with Amunix   for rights to develop therapeutics against an undisclosed target using Amunix’s proprietary protease-triggered immune activator (ProTIA) technology platform.
December 2018   Collaboration agreement with Instituto Butantan  to develop vaccines to protect against dengue virus disease, the mosquito-borne infection. Instituto Butantan’s dengue vaccine candidate, TV003, is currently being evaluated in a large Phase 3 study in Brazil.
October 2018   Licensing collaboration for use of ImaginAb’s novel minibody  CD8 T Cell imaging agent in immuno-oncology clinical trials for multiple types of cancers. In addition, We are making an equity investment in ImaginAb’s Series B round of financing.
October 2018   Collaboration with Dragonfly  to discover, develop and commercialize immunotherapies for patients with solid tumor cancers using Dragonfly’s TriNKET™ technology platform.
July 2018   Expansion of the collaboration with HitGen  to build and screen novel DNA-encoded libraries to discover potential unique small molecule assets to be used in drug discovery and development.
July 2018   Collaboration with Sutro  to leverage its proprietary platforms to discover and develop novel immune-modulating therapies for cancer and autoimmune disorders.
June 2018   Licensing agreement with PeptiDream  for use of its Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) technology. PeptiDream will continue to work with us to identify macrocyclic/ constrained peptides against multiple targets of interest and to optimize hit peptides into therapeutic peptides or small molecule products under a prior agreement.
May 2018   Collaboration with Foundation Medicine  to develop companion diagnostic tests for use with KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), our anti-PD-1 therapy and the fi rst approved immunotherapy for microsatellite instability (MSI) high or mismatch repair deficient solid tumors.
May 2018   Expansion of collaboration with Moderna  to develop and commercialize novel personalized mRNA cancer vaccines to include shared antigen mRNA cancer vaccines including mRNA-5671, Moderna’s mRNA KRAS cancer vaccine.
March 2018   Collaboration with Eisai  to jointly develop and commercialize its LENVIMA® (lenvatinibmesylate), an orally available tyrosine kinase inhibitor, as monotherapy and in combination with our anti-PD-1 therapy, KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab).

Keytruda Combinations:

We have a long list of partnerships and continue to seek collaborations in the immuno-oncology space.