Deals involving antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapies continue to gain momentum with Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Merck & Co. Inc. the latest firms to team up on global development and commercialization activities, as Daiichi offers up rights to three of its potentially first-in-class ADC candidates for $22 billion, making it the largest ADC agreement to date.

GSK plc is the latest pharma giant to bite the “magic bullet” of antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) drugs, promising to pay the Chinese immunotherapy developer Hansoh Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. $85 million up front and over $1.4 billion in milestone payments in a licensing deal for HS-20089.

For a whopping $7.1 billion up front, Roche AG is buying Telavant Holdings Inc., a firm that is owned by Roivant Sciences Ltd. and Pfizer Inc. The deal also includes $150 million on the back end, and Roche gains rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting tumor necrosis factor-like ligand 1A, RVT-3101, for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and possibly other diseases in the U.S. and Japan. Pfizer retains the rights for the rest of the world.

Deals involving antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapies continue to gain momentum with Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Merck & Co. Inc. the latest firms to team up on global development and commercialization activities, as Daiichi offers up rights to three of its potentially first-in-class ADC candidates for $22 billion, making it the largest ADC agreement to date.

Elevar Therapeutics Inc. and Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s licensing deal for camrelizumab (SHR-1210; Airuika in China) will add the PD-1 antibody to Elevar’s liver cancer armory for pairing with rivoceranib, its tyrosine kinase inhibitor on the brink of U.S. FDA review.

Royalty monetization is a financing tactic that is becoming increasingly popular during challenging times, and PTC Therapeutics Inc. is the latest firm to leverage a marketed drug to pay off debt and fuel its development pipeline. The South Plainfield, N.J.-based company agreed to sell up to $1.5 billion of its Evrysdi (risdiplam) royalty stream to Royalty Pharma plc, of New York. Evrysdi is a survival motor neuron 2 RNA splicing modifier approved by the U.S. FDA in 2020 to treat spinal muscular atrophy.

Korean bioventure GI Innovation Inc. inched closer to achieving its goal of “five tech transfer deals in five years” with another licensing deal for its allergy drug, GI-301, with Japan-based Maruho Co. Ltd. for ₩298 billion (US$220.7 million), although share prices still dropped on the news.

While biopharma dealmaking remains active, a strong third quarter (Q3) was not enough to bring it to the same level seen during each of the last three years, although values are coming close. At the same time, M&As appear to be rising above 2022, but even with the increase, they still lag behind other years. If the Pfizer Inc./Seagen Inc. merger, worth $43 billion, closes before the end of 2023, for example, M&As will still not come close to the overall value seen in 2019 and 2020.