November 21, 2024 07:30 Author: Du Sumin Source: Time Weekly 1
In just one week, two business development (BD) transactions with a total transaction amount exceeding 20 billion yuan have made innovative pharmaceutical company Lixin Pharmaceutical the focus of attention in the industry.

On November 20th, China Biopharmaceutical (01177.HK, hereinafter referred to as "Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical") announced that it had signed an equity investment and strategic cooperation agreement with Lixin Pharmaceutical. Accordingly, with an investment of 142 million yuan, Sinopharm will acquire 4.91% of the equity of Lixin Pharmaceutical. At the same time, it will reach strategic cooperation in Chinese Mainland on the LM-108 monoclonal antibody targeting CCR8 independently developed by Lixin Pharmaceutical, and has the right to choose multiple double antibody or ADC innovative drugs in the research pipeline of Lixin Pharmaceutical for cooperation. The specific terms will be otherwise agreed.

This is the second BD transaction conducted by Lixin Pharmaceutical in the past week. On November 14th, multinational pharmaceutical company Merck announced that it has reached an agreement to obtain the exclusive global development, production, and commercialization license for the new PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody LM-299 under development by Lixin Pharmaceuticals. According to the agreement, Lixin Pharmaceutical will receive a prepayment of 588 million US dollars and be eligible for milestone payments of up to 2.7 billion US dollars, bringing the total amount of this transaction to 3.288 billion US dollars, equivalent to approximately 23.8 billion RMB.

Lixin Pharmaceutical is a private biotechnology company specializing in the development of ADC (antibody conjugated drugs) and novel biological therapies for tumor immunology. According to the official website, Lixin Pharmaceutical has a monoclonal antibody screening platform targeting GPCRs and multiple transmembrane proteins, as well as ADC drugs and dual antibody drug development platforms targeting solid tumors (especially gastrointestinal tumors) and hematological tumors. Relying on these R&D platforms, the company has successfully completed early discovery and CMC work for more than ten products in a short period of time, establishing a rich R&D product pipeline, including multiple innovative drug products such as LM-302, LM-108, LM-101, LM-305, etc.

Lixin Pharmaceutical has not been established for a long time, and its founder, chairman, and CEO, Ying Qin, is married to the founder and former chairman of Tianjing Biotechnology, JING WU ZANG. In September 2019, Qin Ying chose to establish Lixin Pharmaceutical in Zhangjiang, Shanghai and carry out research and development of cancer drugs.

According to public media reports, Qin Ying graduated from the Clinical Department of Shanghai Second Medical University (now Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine) with a bachelor's degree, and studied under Academician Wang Zhenyi from the Institute of Internal Medicine and Hematology at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital during her master's degree, who is known as the "father of cancer induced differentiation"; Afterwards, Qin Ying chose to pursue further studies abroad and obtained a doctoral degree in immunology from the University of Limburg in Belgium in 1993.

After returning from her studies, Qin Ying once served as the director of the Biotherapy Center of the School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiaotong University, a researcher and doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Nutrition Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In addition, he has also served as the Director, Chief Medical Officer, and Vice President of Research and Development at multinational companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Thermo Fisher Scientific, with over 20 years of clinical research experience in global translational medicine and immunotherapy.

The reporter of the Time Weekly inquired about the enterprise investigation and the official WeChat official account of Lixin Pharmaceutical, and learned that since its establishment, Lixin Pharmaceutical has conducted five rounds of financing, and the annual round of financing rhythm is particularly difficult in the cold winter of medicine.

In December 2019, Lixin Pharmaceutical received angel round financing from Tiggo Pharmaceuticals; In August 2020, the company completed its Pre-A round of financing, with investors including Yingke Capital, Taifu Capital TF Capital, Lingcheng Venture Capital, and Noyao Biotechnology; In January 2021, Lixin Pharmaceutical completed an A+round of financing, with new investments including Fangboyuan Capital, Qiming Venture Capital, Qingsong Capital, etc; At the end of June 2022, the company completed its Series B financing, led by Qiming Venture Capital, Xia Yan Capital, and Taikun Fund, with Shanghai Biomedical Fund following suit.

In October of this year, Lixin Pharmaceutical announced the successful completion of a 300 million yuan C1 round of financing, led by Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical, with joint participation from Pudong Venture Capital and Zhangjiang Haoheng, and co investment from Qiming Venture Capital and Shanghai Biomedical Fund. At the same time, Lixin Pharmaceutical revealed that the company has recently launched a C2 round of financing, and the raised funds will mainly be used to accelerate the clinical progress of the company's clinical pipeline, especially LM-302 and LM-108, and support the company's independently developed antibody discovery platform, next-generation ADC technology platform, and dual antibody technology platform.

While being sought after by capital, Lixin Pharmaceutical's product pipeline has also gained favor from a group of pharmaceutical companies. In May 2022, Lixin Pharmaceutical and American pharmaceutical company Turning Point reached a cooperation agreement on the anti Claudin18.2 ADC drug LM-302, with a total transaction amount exceeding $1 billion. However, according to the pharmaceutical industry media "Amino Observation", with Turning Point being acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb, the deal was terminated last year, and LM-302 suffered a "return".

However, in May 2023, Lixin Pharmaceutical reached an exclusive licensing agreement with AstraZeneca for the global development and commercialization rights of the GPRC5D antibody conjugate drug LM-305. According to the agreement, Lixin Pharmaceuticals will receive a down payment of $55 million, an additional milestone payment of up to $545 million for development and commercialization, and a gradient sales share based on global net sales.

Excluding the terminated transaction with Turning Point, in the past two years, the total amount of transactions between Lixin Pharmaceutical and AstraZeneca, Merck, and Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical has exceeded 28 billion yuan, which is quite impressive even among listed biotech companies.

In addition to authorizing the product pipeline to multinational corporations, Time Weekly reporters have noticed that Lixin Pharmaceutical has also reached strategic partnerships with multiple pharmaceutical companies such as Sibiman Biotech, Junshi Biotech (688180. SH; 01877. HK), and Kangfang Biotech (09926. HK).

In October 2021, Lixin Pharmaceutical and Sibiman Biotechnology jointly announced that they will work together in the field of solid tumor treatment and carry out in-depth cooperation in various aspects. Shortly thereafter, Lixin Pharmaceutical announced that it had signed a framework cooperation agreement for joint drug use with Junshi Biotechnology. According to the agreement, Lixin Pharmaceutical's series of innovative drugs in the clinical stage will engage in multiple mutually beneficial clinical trial collaborations with Junshi Biotechnology in the field of combination therapy.

In March 2023, Kangfang Biotechnology announced that the company will collaborate with Lixin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. to advance a series of clinical studies on PD-1/VEGF dual antibody new drug Ecovacil (AK112) combined with Claudin 18.2 ADC (LM-302) targeting relevant solid tumors. It is reported that this cooperation will be carried out within the Chinese Mainland, including the phase II clinical trial for the treatment of advanced gastrointestinal tumors, and the clinical research initiated by relevant researchers to confirm the dose, frequency, safety and effectiveness of combined treatment.

Regarding the cooperation with Kangfang Biotechnology, Qin Ying said, "This cooperation will fully leverage Kangfang Biotechnology's professional advantages in tumor immunotherapy and Lixin Medicine's expertise in antibody conjugated drugs. It will combine the excellent efficacy and safety demonstrated by Ecovacil in previous clinical studies with the efficacy and safety of LM-302 in Claudin 18.2 low expression tumors, and is expected to bring more clinical benefits to patients in related disease research, including gastrointestinal tumors

In early September of this year, Ivo Xidan's "head to head" victory over Merck's pembrolizumab (Keytruda/Kerenda, commonly known as "K-drug") ignited the entire pharmaceutical industry as soon as the news came out. The impact of this heavyweight result is still ongoing, and it is even regarded as the fundamental reason for multinational pharmaceutical companies' recent frenzy of "sweeping" domestic dual antibodies.

Affected by the news of the investment in Lixin Pharmaceutical, on November 20th, the stock price of Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical finally closed at HKD 3.38 per share, up 3.36%, with a total market value of HKD 63.514 billion.