A Shang­hai-based biotech is hand­ing off rights to one of its can­di­dates to an­oth­er Shang­hai com­pa­ny.

Qim­ing-backed Ab­bisko — head­ed by Eli Lil­ly and No­var­tis vet­er­an Yao-Chang Xu — said Wednes­day that it would be out-li­cens­ing its can­di­date ABK3376 to Al­list Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. The small mol­e­cule is a pre­clin­i­cal, brain-pen­e­trant EGFR in­hibitor which can in­hib­it dif­fer­ent mu­ta­tions such as L858R ac­ti­vat­ing mu­ta­tion or the ex­on 19 dele­tion mu­ta­tion, Ab­bisko said.

Ab­bisko wrote in a state­ment that it would be el­i­gi­ble for an up­front pay­ment from Al­list, the ex­act amount of which was undis­closed, along with $187.9 mil­lion in mile­stones and cer­tain roy­al­ties. An End­points News query to Ab­bisko was not im­me­di­ate­ly re­turned.

Pre­clin­i­cal stud­ies for the mol­e­cule, ac­cord­ing to the Shang­hai biotech, showed “pos­i­tive re­sults” when used as a sin­gle drug or if used in com­bi­na­tion with fur­mon­er­tinib, Al­list’s third-gen­er­a­tion EGFR in­hibitor.

While fur­mon­er­tinib is al­ready ap­proved in Chi­na, the drug was out-li­censed to Ar­riVent Bio­phar­ma, which launched in 2021. The biotech is cur­rent­ly test­ing the drug in a Phase Ib tri­al in pa­tients with ad­vanced or metasta­t­ic non-small cell lung can­cer (NSCLC) with EGFR or HER2 mu­ta­tions.

The deal calls for Al­list to de­vel­op, man­u­fac­ture and sell ABK3376 in Chi­na, Hong Kong, Tai­wan and Macau, though Al­list has a “time-lim­it­ed op­tion” to ex­pand its rights world­wide. The amount of time that Al­list has to make that op­tion is undis­closed.

Found­ed in 2016, Ab­bisko at­tract­ed VC in­vest­ment from Qim­ing Ven­ture Part­ners in 2019, when the promi­nent firm led the biotech’s Se­ries B for $42 mil­lion.

The Shang­hai biotech went pub­lic in Hong Kong back in 2021, rais­ing $226 mil­lion af­ter ini­tial­ly pric­ing on the Hong Kong In­dex for HK$12.46 a share. Sev­er­al months lat­er, Ab­bisko reached a deal with Eli Lil­ly, part­ner­ing up on co-de­vel­op­ing can­di­dates for car­diometa­bol­ic dis­eases in ear­ly 2022.

The deal gave Ab­bisko the op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­cure up to $258 mil­lion in mile­stones.

Otonomy may be shutting down, but the lessons learned there will live on at another biotech working on new treatments for hearing loss.

San Francisco-based Spiral Therapeutics has bought certain assets related to three of Otonomy’s programs, ranging from data, patent rights, and know-how to inventory. That includes data around Otonomy’s twice-failed lead program, OTO-104 (Otividex), a sustained-exposure formulation of dexamethasone.

Microcap biotech Seelos Therapeutics is halting enrollment of its study in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (also known as Machado-Joseph disease) because of “financial considerations,” and in order to focus on other studies, the company said today, adding that the pause would be temporary.

The study will continue with the patients who have already enrolled, and the data from them will be used to decide whether to continue enrolling others in the future.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.