From March 2021 to April 2022, there have been seven deals in ophthalmology. Ophthalmic drugs have become an important target of in-licensing deals in China.
Several early-stage out-licensing deals inked by Chinese biotech firms to carry their in-house technology platforms and pipelines to the global market marked the dealmaking space of March 2022.
Huadong Medicine announced a series of three in-licensing deals with a combined value of $1.667 billion, pushing the total deal value for February to $1.883 billion, edging over the $1.681 billion the previous month.
In the first month of 2022, 16 licensing deals related to innovative drugs were announced, including eight in-licensing, four out-licensing and four domestic deals.
Early-stage assets made up half of the licensing deals in 2021, up 10% from the previous year.
In November and December 16 and 21 licensing deals were reached, respectively. December boasted the second highest number of deals for the year, including 18 in-licensing deals from overseas, seven out-licensed deals and 12 deals between Chinese pharmaceutical firms.
Chinese drugmakers struck 14 licensing deals in October with five of them exceeding $100 million. Hansoh Pharma announced two big deals worth nearly $2 billion in total to mark its foray into siRNA therapeutics.
Among the 22 deals Chinese drugmakers closed in September, 14 were worth $2.566 billion. Everest Medicines and Innovent Biologics dominated the dealmaking space with deals worth $1.06 billion and $529 million, respectively, representing 62% of the total value of all disclosed deals.