Bio­gen ac­quires rights for po­ten­tial Actem­ra biosim­i­lar; Roy­al­ty Phar­ma buys lumasir­an roy­al­ty stream for up to $240M

Bio­gen has a new part­ner to help de­vel­op an ex­per­i­men­tal IL-6 biosim­i­lar.

The Cam­bridge, MA-based com­pa­ny an­nounced Thurs­day it has teamed up with Chi­nese firm Bio-Thera So­lu­tions to de­vel­op, man­u­fac­ture and com­mer­cial­ize BAT1806. Cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing Phase III stud­ies, the drug is an IL-6 re­cep­tor mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body that could prove to be a biosim­i­lar for Roche’s Actem­ra.

Bio­gen is on the hook for $30 mil­lion up­front, while mile­stone and roy­al­ty terms of the deal were not dis­closed. The agree­ment pro­vides li­cens­ing rights for Bio­gen to mar­ket the pro­gram in all coun­tries out­side Chi­na.

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