Chi­na can­cer spe­cial­ist Zai Lab has made its name in-li­cens­ing West­ern drugs and us­ing its deep knowl­edge of the East Asian mar­ket to churn out re­sults. The biotech has now signed two more li­cens­ing deals for a trio of drugs, in­clud­ing a very sud­den jump in­to the neu­ro­science space.

First, Zai Lab inked a deal Tues­day with Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics for rights in main­land Chi­na, Hong Kong, Macau and Tai­wan to KarXT, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al M1/M4-pre­fer­ring mus­carinic ag­o­nist be­ing test­ed to treat a va­ri­ety of psy­chi­atric con­di­tions.

Zai Lab will shell out $35 mil­lion up­front in this one with the po­ten­tial for an ad­di­tion­al $80 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment and reg­u­la­to­ry mile­stones and $72 mil­lion in sales mile­stones on top of roy­al­ties.

Karuna is eval­u­at­ing KarXT in a slate of late-stage tri­als to treat schiz­o­phre­nia and psy­chosis in Alzheimer’s pa­tients with two Phase III stud­ies for the schiz­o­phre­nia pro­gram ex­pect­ed to read­out in 2022. Mean­while, the com­pa­ny is set to be­gin an ad­di­tion­al Phase III tri­al look­ing at KarXT as an ad­junct ther­a­py for pre­vi­ous­ly treat­ed adults by the end of the year.

Mean­while, an up­com­ing Phase III study for KarXT in psy­chosis in Alzheimer’s is set to kick off by mid-2022.

The deal is sig­nif­i­cant in that it rep­re­sents Zai Lab’s first for­ay in­to neu­ro­science, an­oth­er branch­ing out for the can­cer spe­cial­ist. In a state­ment, CEO Saman­tha Du had this to say about why her team de­cid­ed to make the leap:

Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Karuna is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for Zai Lab, mark­ing the ex­pan­sion and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of our de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial port­fo­lio in­to neu­ro­science, our fourth ther­a­peu­tic area. KarXT is well po­si­tioned to serve as the an­chor as­set in our new neu­ro­science fran­chise. Zai Lab’s mis­sion is to de­liv­er in­no­v­a­tive med­i­cines to ad­dress un­met med­ical needs of pa­tients, and we look for­ward to work­ing with Karuna to bring KarXT to pa­tients in need in Greater Chi­na as soon as pos­si­ble.

In a sec­ond pact signed Tues­day, Zai Lab will pay $25 mil­lion up­front and a po­ten­tial ad­di­tion­al $590 mil­lion in down­stream mile­stones for rights to Blue­print Med­i­cines’ in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al EGFR TKI in­hibitors BLU-945 and BLU-701 in Chi­na, Hong Kong, Macau and Tai­wan, the com­pa­nies said Tues­day.

Both drugs are be­ing de­vel­oped specif­i­cal­ly to tar­get drug re­sis­tant mu­ta­tions in EGFR-pos­i­tive lung can­cer pa­tients who do not re­spond to oth­er EGFR in­hibitors. BLU-945 specif­i­cal­ly tar­gets the T790M and C797S and mu­ta­tions while BLU-701 tar­gets C797S with pre­clin­i­cal mod­els show­ing a high de­gree of CNS pen­e­tra­tion, po­ten­tial­ly mak­ing it a good op­tion for pa­tients with brain metas­tases.

Zai Lab sees these drugs as po­ten­tial first-in-class op­tions in Chi­na for EGFR-pos­i­tive NSCLC pa­tients whose dis­ease pro­gress­es with oth­er EGFR in­hibitors, and Blue­print is us­ing the deal as part of a glob­al clin­i­cal ef­fort to see both drugs reach ap­proval in Chi­na and else­where.

If ei­ther drug does get ap­proved in Chi­na, Blue­print will be due tiered roy­al­ties in the “low teens to mid-teens.”

Amgen is the latest pharma company to appear on the radar of Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is investigating the way pharma companies are using subsidiaries in low- or zero-tax countries to lower their tax bills.

Like its peers Merck, AbbVie and Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyden notes how Amgen uses its Puerto Rico operations to consistently pay tax rates that are substantially lower than the U.S. corporate tax rate of 21%, with an effective tax rate of 10.7% in 2020 and 12.1% in 2021.

After controversially spinning out its talc liabilities and filing for bankruptcy in an attempt to settle 38,000 lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson is now changing up the formula for its baby powder products.

J&J is beginning the transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio, the pharma giant announced on Thursday — just months after a federal judge ruled in favor of its “Texas two-step” bankruptcy to settle allegations that its talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. An appeals court has since agreed to revisit that case.