Af­ter rack­ing up H1 sales of $2.3 bil­lion for its PD-1 star Op­di­vo, Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb is now fronting $105 mil­lion — with a trove of $1.8 bil­lion-plus in mile­stones — to see whether its huge­ly im­por­tant im­muno-on­col­o­gy fran­chise can be helped by the de­liv­ery tech de­vel­oped at Halozyme.

That’s not all for Halozyme. Right af­ter the Bris­tol-My­ers $BMY deal popped Thurs­day morn­ing, Roche {RHH­BY} un­veiled its own plan to use the de­liv­ery tech for an­oth­er tar­get of its own — ex­pand­ing on their col­lab­o­ra­tion — which it will keep un­der wraps. That adds a $30 mil­lion up-front pay­ment with an­oth­er $160 mil­lion in mile­stones, bring­ing the pack­age to­day to $2 bil­lion in the up fronts and goal cash for Halozyme $HA­LO.

Halozyme shares surged 18% as the deals lined up this morn­ing.

The San Diego-based biotech will lend its hyaluronidase en­zyme (rHuPH20) — which tem­porar­i­ly de­grades hyaluro­nan — to see if Bris­tol’s drugs can be de­liv­ered with a sub­cu­ta­neous jab in­stead of by IV. That would be a key pref­er­ence for doc­tors and pa­tients, and in the in­tense­ly com­pet­i­tive I/O field — where Bris­tol-My­ers has stum­bled — any com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage is be­ing hot­ly pur­sued.

He­len Tor­ley, Halozyme

This new tech from Halozyme has the po­ten­tial to cre­ate “flex­i­ble and con­ve­nient treat­ment de­liv­ery op­tions,” notes Bris­tol-My­ers com­mer­cial chief Mur­do Gor­don.

PD-1 is at the top of the list of 11 tar­gets in the deal, of course, with “mul­ti­ple” ad­di­tion­al pro­grams in the deal. And the pact in­cludes plen­ty of op­tions for more in the first 5 years, with each tar­get worth a po­ten­tial $160 mil­lion in mile­stones. And there’s more mon­ey on the ta­ble for com­bo ther­a­pies — the hot fo­cus now that the pi­o­neers are out front and claim­ing mar­ket share.

There’s more to these deals than a com­pet­i­tive edge over ri­vals, Halozyme CEO He­len Tor­ley told me to­day, though that is clear­ly in play with the Bris­tol-My­ers deal. A sub­cu­ta­neous in­jec­tion is faster, eas­i­er and al­so less ex­pen­sive for pay­ers, who won’t over­look the mon­ey that can be de­duct­ed from pro­vid­ing these ex­pen­sive ther­a­pies.

These deals mark a wa­ter­shed mo­ment for Halozyme, she adds, as a re­cent FDA ap­proval for rit­ux­imab and hyaluronidase hu­man is an easy in­jec­tion has helped in­spire a line­up of po­ten­tial part­ners to knock on their doors to dis­cuss new pacts.

The deal al­so marks a big plus for  Tor­ley, who’s had to deal with stum­bles of her own. The biotech’s de­liv­ery tech in­spired its lead drug PEGPH20, which failed a fu­til­i­ty test last spring af­ter it was com­bined with Folfiri­nox and test­ed against Folfiri­nox alone in metasta­t­ic pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. Shares of Halozyme dropped 10% last fall af­ter the com­pa­ny an­nounced that Ab­b­Vie opt­ed to drop one of their part­nered pro­grams us­ing their plat­form tech with a tu­mor necro­sis fac­tor al­pha tar­get. Their Phase I study fell short of its tar­gets, forc­ing the end of the pro­gram. But they’ll con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er un­der the terms of their $153 mil­lion 2015 pact.

Three press re­leas­es from $HA­LO so far this morn­ing. FWIW, here's my chart of their roy­al­ty rev­enue growth. https://t.co/fd­PYM5hB53 pic.twit­ter.com/YyqQ1qWE9F

— Brad Lon­car (@brad­lon­car) Sep­tem­ber 14, 2017

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.

Abbott is renewing its concussion awareness campaign, weeks after the company received FDA clearance for its lab-based traumatic brain injury (TBI) blood test.

The unbranded campaign features three generations of the Melon family — animated talking melons who slip on toys or take a spill while playing pickleball.

“Don’t mess with your melon. If you hit it, get it checked,” a narrator says.