Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd.

Under the terms of the five-year deal, Aditum’s nascent biotech Clavis Bio will nominate targets, at most four a year, which Clavis and Fosun will then develop preclinical drug candidates for.\n Venture capital firm Aditum Bio is going all-out for a new collaboration with Fosun Pharma, launching a subsidiary with the sole purpose of developing novel therapies in tandem with the Shanghai-based drugmaker.Under the terms of the five-year deal (PDF, Chinese), Aditum’s nascent biotech Clavis Bio will nominate targets—at most four a year—which Clavis and Fosun will then develop preclinical drug candidates for, Fosun said in a Dec. 18 release.From there, Fosun will hold the exclusive right to develop, manufacture and commercialize each partnered asset in China, Hong Kong and Macau, while Clavis will have the option to license the programs in the rest of the world.Should Clavis elect to exercise its option, Fosun could net up to $362.50 million in option exercise fees, as well as development, registration and sales milestones, along with royalties from any potential sales, according to the release.For any program Clavis chooses to advance, Aditum will launch another new subsidiary to take on development. As part of the deal, Fosun will get a minority stake in any of these freshly formed companies.Aditum formed Clavis in March specifically for this collaboration with Fosun, according to the release. The partners did not disclose which therapeutic areas the partnership focuses on. “Leveraging our complementary strengths in preclinical development and clinical operation capability, this collaboration will further enrich Fosun Pharma’s R&D pipeline.” Chen Yuqing, Fosun Pharma’s chair, said in the release. “The flexible collaboration model enables us to convert early-stage, high-potential targets into clinical stage more efficiently, with the aim of accelerating to bring more innovative therapies to patients worldwide.”Fosun had a flurry of dealmaking this August, signing three inflammatory disease pacts in a span of three weeks. The pharma picked up China rights to a TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor from Accro Bioscience, following the outlicensing of a drug candidate to Sitala Bio and the offloading of ex-China rights for an investigational DPP-1 inhibitor to Expedition Therapeutics.Aditum, meanwhile, has been on dizzying spree of spinouts. In addition to Clavis Bio and any other subsidiaries that may arise from it, the VC outfit partnered up with China-based Mabwell Bioscience to launch a new cardiovascular disease biotech in September. The firm was co-founded in 2019 by former Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez, who now serves as the VC’s managing director.China is a common source of innovation for Aditum. About a year ago, in November 2024, Aditum hatched Oblenio Bio through a team-up with China-based Leads Biolabs. Oblenio’s focus is a tri-specific T-cell engager antibody for autoimmune diseases.

Enhertu's first-line breast cancer approval, unexpected death cases in a Daiichi Sankyo antibody-drug conjugate trial and positive readouts from Takeda's Sotyktu challenger made our news this week. In the last Fierce Pharma Asia weekly news roundup of 2025, Daiichi Sankyo scored a key FDA approval for AstraZeneca-partnered Enhertu in first-line HER2-positive breast cancer but paused a phase 3 trial of its Merck & Co.-partnered antibody-drug conjugate due to unexpected patient deaths. Takeda plans to file its TYK2 inhibitor for an FDA approval following a pair of positive phase 3 trials in psoriasis. And more.1. AZ, Daiichi score with FDA nod for Enhertu combo in 1st-line breast cancerThe FDA has approved AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu in combination with Roche’s Perjeta as the first new first-line treatment of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer in more than a decade. In the Destiny-Breast09 trial, the combo significantly lowered the risk of progression or death by 44% compared with the traditional THP regimen.2. Patient deaths prompt partial hold for Daiichi-Merck’s global phase 3 ADC programDaiichi has paused enrollment in a phase 3 trial of its Merck & Co.-partnered B7-H3 antibody-drug conjugate, ifinatamab deruxtecan, after an unexpected number of deaths from interstitial lung disease. The partial clinical hold comes as the pharma partners said they were aiming for an accelerated approval for the candidate for pretreated small cell lung cancer based on a phase 2 readout.3. Takeda looks to 2026 FDA filing for its Sotyktu rival zasocitinib after phase 3 successTakeda said its oral TYK2 inhibitor zasocitinib, a potential competitor to Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu, succeeded in two phase 3 trials in moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. The drug beat placebo on the trials’ co-primary endpoints of static Physician Global Assessment 0/1 and the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index 75 at Week 16. The company plans to file for an FDA approval. 4. Biosecure Act heads to Trump's desk with defense spending bill after Senate voteBoth the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed the annual defense bill that includes the revamped Biosecure Act. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the massive defense package into law. Once enacted, the updated Biosecure Act will raise hurdles for life sciences companies from China.5. Fosun signs up to take on China's Green Valley, revive controversial Alzheimer's medFosun Pharma is spending about $200 million to take a 53% stake in Green Valley Pharmaceuticals, aiming to revive the latter’s controversial Alzheimer’s disease med, sodium oligomannate (GV-971), after Chinese regulators opted not to renew the drug’s conditional approval. The Shanghai Stock Exchange sent Fosun a regulatory letter related to the proposed transaction. Such a letter typically reminds a public company of potential regulatory breaches.6. Harbour BioMed docks with BMS in antibody discovery, development deal worth up to $1.1BBristol Myers Squibb signed on China’s Harbour BioMed to discover multispecific antibodies. Harbour could receive payments totaling $90 million plus development and commercial milestones of up to $1.035 billion. Before BMS, Harbour had forged collaborations with Otsuka and AstraZeneca earlier this year.7. Sanofi signs $1B biobucks pact for Alzheimer's asset in 2nd biotech deal of the daySanofi has signed a licensing deal worth up to $1.04 billion with South Korean biotech Adel. The pact focuses on ADEL-Y01, a tau-targeting antibody for Alzheimer’s disease. Sanofi will pay $80 million upfront for the clinical-stage asset and related backup compounds. Rather than broadly targeting tau, the drug focuses on tau acetylated at lysine-280.Other News of Note: 8. AI drug designer Insilico Medicine aims to generate nearly $300M in Hong Kong IPO9. Keytruda, Padcev keep winning streak with another patient survival benefit in bladder cancer10. Yarrow blooms with $1.37B deal, landing autoimmune thyroid disease drug from China's GenSci11. Yarrow to go public in reverse merger with Vyne (release)12. Boehringer inks AI protein design pact with Korea’s Galux (release)13. Hansoh sells regional rights to EGFR inhibitor to Glenmark in potential $1B deal (release)14. Lilly to help Korea’s Medi&Gene advance an obesity asset (release) 

Aditum Bio, the biotech company creation firm from former Novartis leaders Joe Jimenez and Mark Fishman, has returned to China for another deal. This time, Aditum is forming a new company called Clavis Bio to develop medicines as part of a five-year collaboration with Fosun Pharma. The deal includes one of the largest milestone packages of the year. Details on the upfront payment remain undisclosed, but Clavis could eventually deliver up to $7.25 billion to its Shanghai-based partner, a Fosun spokesperson confirmed to Endpoints News . That’s if Clavis decides to opt into all 20 collaboration projects, the spokesperson said. It’s uncommon for a biopharma collaboration to span that many potential programs, and for the acquiring party to opt into every single one. The deal gives Clavis the option to nominate up to four targets per year for five years, and if each project comes to fruition, Fosun could get up to $362.5 million. Clavis and Fosun will jointly work on preclinical steps, and Clavis will have the option to exclusively develop, manufacture and market any resulting medicines outside of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The move follows Aditum’s other deals in China for its portfolio companies Oblenio Bio and Kalexo Bio . The latter emerged in September with a cardio-focused siRNA from Mabwell. Jimenez, Aditum’s co-founder and managing director, was previously CEO of Novartis, where he helped set up a China research unit. “That’s a definite benefit for Aditum, just given the network that we have in the Chinese biotech environment,” Jimenez told Endpoints at the time of the September deal. The Clavis deal appears to mark a departure from Aditum’s model, though. Aditum has raised three funds since 2019 to build single-asset biotech companies formed around early clinical-stage medicines or experimental drugs on the verge of entering human trials. Aditum’s portfolio companies are supported by a central development team that helps run clinical studies to get the assets to proof-of-concept to entice pharma buyers. This worked nicely with Versanis Bio . With Clavis, though, Aditum is building a biotech that could span many more assets than it is used to, and it’s not focused on a near-term drug prospect. The partners could eventually ship each drug candidate into a separate company that Fosun gets a stake in, Fosun said. In Fosun, Clavis is turning to a well-connected biopharma. The Shanghai-based drug developer has been part of this year’s surge in China-to-West pharma dealmaking, signing pacts with Expedition Therapeutics, Sitala Bio and Pfizer . “The flexible collaboration model enables us to convert early-stage, high-potential targets into clinical stage more efficiently, with the aim of accelerating to bring more innovative therapies to patients worldwide,” Fosun chairman Chen Yuqing said in a statement.