(Reuters) -Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co has signed a deal with Innovent Biologics to accelerate development of the Chinese drugmaker’s oncology medicines, it said on Wednesday.
Takeda will help to develop Innovent’s non-small cell lung and colorectal cancer medicine candidate IBI363, and gastric and pancreatic cancer candidate IBI343. It also has an option to help develop another locally advanced or metastatic solid tumour medicine candidate IBI3001.
Andy Plump, president of Research and Development at Takeda, said in a statement the company was encouraged by clinical results and looked forward to working with Innovent “to deliver these potentially best-in-class medicines to patients with longstanding unmet needs across a wide range of cancers”.
Under the agreement, Innovent is set to receive a $1.2 billion upfront payment from a unit of Takeda, including a $100 million equity investment.
Innovent is also eligible for potential milestone payments totalling up to $10.2 billion, bringing the deal value to $11.4 billion, Innovent said in a separate statement.
(Reporting by Andrew Silver in Shanghai, Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Barbara Lewis)
