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China-based Hengrui Pharma and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) have announced the companies have entered into global strategic collaboration and license agreements to advance a portfolio of 13 early stage programmes in oncology, hematology and immunology, with the goal of accelerating discovery and development of innovative medicines for the benefit of patients worldwide.
The agreements include four oncology/hematology assets from Hengrui, four immunology assets from BMS, and five innovative assets to be jointly discovered and developed by both companies, leveraging Hengrui's discovery engine and platform technologies across several innovative modalities. Hengrui has the option to co-develop select assets and the potential to conduct certain commercialisation activities globally with BMS.
Under the collaboration, BMS obtains exclusive worldwide rights to the Hengrui‑originated assets outside Chinese mainland, Hong Kong SAR, and Macau SAR (Hengrui Territory), while Hengrui obtains exclusive rights to the BMS‑originated assets within the Hengrui Territory, with BMS retaining rights for the rest of the world. Hengrui will be fully responsible for early clinical development to accelerate clinical proof of concept for these programmes.
Aligned with the collaborative innovation strategies of both BMS and Hengrui, these agreements reflect the companies' continued focus on advancing innovative science through partnership in areas of significant unmet medical need.
The collaboration brings together BMS's differentiated research and discovery strengths, global clinical development capabilities, regulatory expertise, and commercial scale with Hengrui Pharma's discovery engine, platform technologies, and efficient early-stage development expertise, enabling the advancement of a broad portfolio of high-value programmes.
