A year af­ter I-Mab made head­lines with its $2.9 bil­lion deal li­cens­ing a CD47 drug to Ab­b­Vie, the Chi­nese biotech is re­port­ed­ly hold­ing ear­ly talks with glob­al phar­ma play­ers about part­ner­ships and po­ten­tial in­vest­ment.

The Shang­hai-based, Nas­daq-list­ed com­pa­ny is mulling “clin­i­cal and com­mer­cial co­op­er­a­tion in Chi­na and a po­ten­tial eq­ui­ty stake sale,” Bloomberg re­port­ed, quot­ing peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter. Both US and Eu­ro­pean drug­mak­ers are among the suit­ors in­volved in pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions.

I-Mab did not re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment. For any­one who’s been fol­low­ing the com­pa­ny, though, it wouldn’t come as a sur­prise.

Un­der founder and chair­man Jing­wu Zang — who had helmed Glax­o­SmithK­line’s Chi­na R&D ops un­til he was dis­missed amid a scan­dal — I-Mab has been clear about want­i­ng to lead among a grow­ing pack of Chi­nese com­pa­nies that be­lieve they have a role to play on the glob­al stage. Not on­ly does I-Mab have an of­fice in Mary­land to over­see clin­i­cal tri­al work, it al­so di­vides its pipeline in­to two port­fo­lios: Chi­na and glob­al.

As Big Phar­ma in­creas­ing­ly looks to Chi­na as a source of new drugs, do­mes­tic drug­mak­ers from In­novent and BeiGene to Leg­end and CStone have al­so scored high-pro­file part­ner­ships (with Eli Lil­ly, Am­gen, J&J and Pfiz­er, re­spec­tive­ly) that come in a va­ri­ety of forms.

When it emerged that Ab­b­Vie was pay­ing $180 mil­lion to grab lem­zopar­limab and first dibs to oth­er re­lat­ed an­ti­bod­ies, Zang point­ed to the phar­ma gi­ant’s in­ter­est in im­muno-on­col­o­gy, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment ex­per­tise and an­ti­body man­u­fac­tur­ing savvi­ness as the main draws to the al­liance.

“For us this is not just a one-time deal,” he told End­points News at the time. “This is the be­gin­ning of a se­ries of val­i­da­tion, glob­al deals we are ex­pect­ing in the next few years.”

For Ab­b­Vie, it was a tick­et in­to the steam­ing-hot CD47 space, which has on­ly got­ten more at­ten­tion since fol­low­ing Pfiz­er’s $2.3 bil­lion buy­out of Tril­li­um.

Ac­cord­ing to the Bloomberg re­port, I-Mab is seek­ing a part­ner to joint­ly de­vel­op the CD73 an­ti­body uliledlimab, in hopes of repli­cat­ing the suc­cess of the Ab­b­Vie pact.

It’s clear­ly not just mon­ey Zang is af­ter. Al­ready boast­ing near­ly $5 bil­lion in mar­ket cap on Nas­daq, the com­pa­ny is in the process of pur­su­ing a dual list­ing on Shang­hai’s STAR board.

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.

Paul Stoffels has made it clear that he views cutting jobs at Galapagos as difficult but necessary — but he’s getting creative about it.

Galapagos, headquartered in Mechelen, Belgium, has struck an arrangement with French contract research organization NovAliX to transfer its drug discovery and research activities. While NovAliX is based in Strasbourg, it will take over running the site that Galapagos ran in Romainville, France.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.

A public T cell biotech’s chief executive has decided to leave the company.

TScan Therapeutics said Friday morning that CEO David Southwell stepped down earlier this week, leaving both his chief executive and board member roles. Filling in is Gavin MacBeath, the company’s CSO and COO. He became the acting CEO on Tuesday, and will continue to remain CSO and COO, TScan’s announcement read.