ProfoundBio (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.

A hot antibody discovery team in China has signed its second US biotech deal in less than six months, marking the latest sign of the industry’s flourishing wave of China-to-US drug development partnerships. The startup, known as VelaVigo, will deliver a preclinical bispecific antibody to little-known Ollin Biosciences for up to $440 million total, VelaVigo exclusively told Endpoints News . VelaVigo will retain Greater China rights to the asset, known as VBS-102. “There’s an increasing trend of licensing innovative products out of China,” VelaVigo business and finance chief Tong Zhang said in an interview. “We are on the front of that wave.” The experimental antibody focuses on thyroid eye disease. Amgen’s Tepezza treats the autoimmune condition, but multiple biotechs are racing to best or replace the medicine that the California drugmaker got by way of its $28 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics. VelaVigo will also get an undisclosed equity stake in Ollin. The ophthalmology startup, which has yet to disclose its investors or its programs, is led by former executives from retinal disease biotech Kodiak Sciences. Shanghai-based VelaVigo did not get an equity stake as part of its antibody-drug conjugate deal with Avenzo Therapeutics in November. Ollin’s CEO is Jason Ehrlich, the former medical and development chief at Kodiak. Maze Therapeutics CEO Jason Coloma and Maze chief strategy officer Atul Dandekar are co-founders of Ollin, according to regulatory filings and LinkedIn bios. An Ollin spokesperson said the company is focused on ophthalmology and remains in “stealth mode.” The startup will be sharing more about its plans “in the near future,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. Four-year-old VelaVigo is one of hundreds of China drug developers looking to capitalize on the surge of interest in the country’s booming biotech scene. The startup is led by CEO Jing Li, a WuXi Biologics and Novartis veteran. Zhang, the business chief, was previously in healthcare private equity investing and, before that, business development at WuXi AppTec and Merck’s China unit. Investors recently pumped a $50 million pre-Series A into VelaVigo, the company disclosed in December. Backers include Panacea Venture, Shanghai Healthcare Capital, HighLight Capital, Vertex Ventures and others. European and US investors are also circling the biotech, and the company has ample capital to get its slate of preclinical assets to the IND stage, Zhang said. The two licensing deals are helping fuel a sustainable business model in which the company can take its own assets into the clinic while also churning out more candidates for potential partnerships. In an interview, Zhang and Li outlined a vision of becoming a “Profound+Duality,” referring to Genmab-acquired ProfoundBio and Duality Biologics, which earlier this week went public in a sizzling Hong Kong Stock Exchange IPO that surged in first-day trading. ProfoundBio , with operations in Seattle and Suzhou , China, internally developed its ADCs before selling to Genmab for $1.8 billion last year . Shanghai-based Duality, meanwhile, has licensed out many of its ADCs and other programs to partners like Avenzo, GSK, BioNTech and others. VelaVigo wants to be a mixture. It will carry forward some assets on its own and license out others. “We think we have the best of both models,” Zhang said. VelaVigo expects additional partnership deals this year, he said. The company’s current sketch of an exit plan is a Nasdaq IPO in 2027 or 2028, Zhang said. The company plans to remain nimble that whole time, growing to no more than 100 employees before a Wall Street debut, he said. It’s at nearly 60 today, with about 90% focused on discovery work, the CBO said. The company will send its first antibody into the clinic in the US and China in the third quarter of this year, Zhang said. “Data from China are getting more recognition, but everything else being equal, clinical data in the US carries more weight in at least large pharma deals,” the business chief said. The first batch of clinical data should “further validate” VelaVigo’s preclinical data and “that will bring the next deal value in a different order of magnitude,” Zhang said. Behind that lead internal asset, and the two licensed to Avenzo and VelaVigo, the startup has five additional preclinical assets in the works. That includes three bispecific antibody-drug conjugates and two multi-specific T cell engagers, Li said. Both of those modalities have picked up steam in recent years and continue to be the subject of many flashy pharma-biotech pacts. VelaVigo plans to disclose more on those five assets at multiple scientific conferences over the next few months, Zhang and Li said. They’re not “fast-follower” or “me-too” assets, Li said. Rather, the company seeks out first-in-class programs with a “target-mining group,” Zhang said. The company doesn’t anticipate negative headwinds from President Donald Trump’s tariffs. “A lot of people are asking us whether this tariff war will have impact. So far, no. It doesn’t impact us at all,” Zhang said. “Our discovery is still in China. We don’t have much imports from the US, so it’s not affected by that. And our transactions are all IP licensing between our US subsidiary and other US company or European company.” The biotech’s name is a nod to vela, the Latin word for “sails.” Li’s daughter came up with the name, Zhang said. “We see drug discovery like sailing the ocean of biology,” Zhang said.

Novo Nordisk's China obesity deal, Merck's cardiovascular licensing deal, and an FDA rejection for Hengrui and Elevar's PD-1 combo made our news this week. Novo Nordisk snapped up an obesity asset from China's United Laboratories in a deal worth up to $2 billion. Merck & Co. got a lipoprotein(a) inhibitor from Jiangsu Hengrui Pharma for cardiovascular disease. Hengrui and Elevar Therapeutics' PD-1 liver cancer combination was again tripped up by manufacturing at the FDA.1. Novo Nordisk pens $2B deal for triple G agonist tied to 15% weight loss at 12 weeksNovo Nordisk has bought into the “triple G” idea, gaining a GLP-1/GIP/glucagon triple agonist from China’s United Laboratories for up to $2 billion. The candidate, coded UBT251, would be a direct competitor to Eli Lilly’s retatrutide. In a phase 1b trial, weekly UBT251 at the highest subcutaneous dose of 6 mg led to an average 15.1% weight loss from baseline after 12 weeks.2. Merck & Co. pens $200M upfront deal for Hengrui's midstage heart disease medIn another China deal potentially worth up to $2 billion, Merck & Co. is paying $200 million upfront for a phase 2 lipoprotein(a) inhibitor from Hengrui Pharma. Elevated Lp(a) in the blood, as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, has become an increasingly popular target. Lilly has a clinical candidate called muvalaplin, and AstraZeneca last year licensed a preclinical one from China’s CSPC Pharma.3. FDA rejects Hengrui, Elevar's PD-1 cancer drug combination—againIn a piece of bad news for Hengrui, the FDA has once again rejected its Elevar Therapeutics-partnered combination of the PD-1 inhibitor camrelizumab and VEGFR inhibitor rivoceranib. Like the first rejection last year, the FDA this time also raised problems with Hengrui’s camrelizumab manufacturing facility in China.4. AbbVie takes Genmab to court, accusing partner of being 'willfully blind' to ADC trade secret theftAbbVie has sued Genmab over the Danish company’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Sino-American biotech ProfoundBio last year. The Illinois pharma alleged that Genmab was “intentionally and willfully blind” to Profound’s alleged theft of its antibody-drug conjugate trade secrets. Genmab said it “categorically refutes allegations and will vigorously defend the company.”5. J&J combo signals new era in EGFR lung cancer with survival win against AstraZeneca's TagrissoJohnson & Johnson’s Rybrevant and its Yuhan-partnered Lazcluze significantly reduced the risk of death by 25% versus AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso in first-line EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer, according to a high-stakes readout from the phase 3 Mariposa trial. J&J believes the overall survival win sets the combo up to be the new standard of care. But the high-maintenance nature of the regimen poses a challenge.6. Drugmakers fear Trump tariffs will drive up manufacturing costs, hurt medicine access: BIO surveyTrump again threatens tariffs on pharmaceuticals in 'not too distant' futurePresident Donald Trump said his administration will announce tariffs on pharmaceuticals “in the not too distant” future. But in a recent survey conducted by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a large proportion of biopharma companies polled said tariffs on EU, Canada or China will drive up manufacturing costs. Many respondents also fear that tariffs could disrupt R&D and regulatory plans.7. FDA calls out 'particularly concerning' claims on HCP site for Taiho's LytgobiThe FDA has taken issue with Taiho Oncology’s doctor-facing web page for the cholangiocarcinoma drug Lytgobi. The agency raised concerns that some descriptions of the drug’s overall survival and progression-free survival data from a single-arm phase 2 study were misleading. The agency is giving the firm 15 working days to submit a written response.8. Eisai lays out road map to blockbuster sales projections for Leqembi's 'milestone' 2027 year9. Contractors WuXi Bio, WuXi XDC eye continued growth after logging solid performances in 202410. Gavi terminates COVID vaccine deal with Clover, demands $224M repayment11. Ascletis slashes funding for former core programs in pivot to obesity12. ImmuneOnco axes CD47 bispecific as pipeline prioritization pressures hit Chinese biotech13. India's Aspen Biopharma Labs hit with FDA warning letter citing infrastructure, contamination and records problems14. Biotech designed to commercialize Ascendis' endocrinology drugs in China files $86M IPO15. Bharat Biotech enters cell and gene therapy market with $75M production investment: reports16. Bayer gains Puhe’s cancer drug candidate in another China deal (release)17. Kaken agrees to $180M deal to develop Alumis' lead TYK2 inhibitor in Japan

AbbVie has accused a Genmab subsidiary of stealing trade secrets to build a potential competitor to its ovarian cancer treatment Elahere. In a lawsuit filed on Friday in Washington federal court, AbbVie alleged that ProfoundBio used proprietary information from a former AbbVie scientist to develop its antibody-drug conjugate pipeline. AbbVie added in its complaint that when Genmab acquired ProfoundBio for $1.8 billion last May, it gained the rights to “ProfoundBio’s technology, patents, and ADC pipeline that directly stem from its theft of AbbVie’s hard-earned trade secrets and confidential information.” A focal point of Genmab’s acquisition was rinatabart sesutecan, a candidate that’s now in Phase 2 and could compete directly with AbbVie’s ovarian cancer treatment Elahere. AbbVie’s allegations pertain to certain features of linkers, which are used in ADCs to attach an antibody to a cancer-killing payload. AbbVie argued in its complaint that some features of rinatabart sesutecan were “copied atom-for-atom.” Genmab said in a statement on Saturday that it “categorically refutes these allegations and will vigorously defend the company against AbbVie’s claims.” The company added that its separate collaboration with AbbVie on the blood cancer drug Epkinly is “unaffected.” Pharma companies have filed a raft of lawsuits alleging the misappropriation of trade secrets in recent years, including multiple cases by AbbVie.