Deals, Development and Manufacturing

Johnson & Johnson has entered a collaboration and equity investment agreement with Sail Biomedicines to advance in vivo CAR-T therapies for immune-mediated diseases, securing an exclusive option to acquire the company for $2.58 billion.

Carrie Bracco, head of business development, US, Novartis Contract Manufacturing, explains why manufacturing flexibility is becoming as important as capacity for emerging biotechnology companies navigating biopharmaceutical development and contract manufacturing decisions.

argenx will acquire Forte Biosciences for $2.2 billion, which will add first-in-class anti-CD122 antibody, FB102, to its immunology pipeline.

Ipsen has completed its acquisition of Memo Therapeutics, which adds potravitug, an anti-BKPyV antibody, to its rare disease pipeline.

Under the deal, Lonza will grant Engitix a single-target ADC license for SYNtecan E, GlycoConnect, and HydraSpace to advance ECM-targeted fibrosis and cancer therapies.

Halozyme and Incyte will advance subcutaneous INCA033989 for mutCALR-positive MPNs, with the aim of improving treatment delivery while supporting targeted clinical development.

Innovent Biologics and Spero Therapeutics have signed a $1.1 billion licensing deal for IBI355, a phase 2-ready Fc-silent anti-CD40L antibody planned for testing in IgG4-related disease and Sjögren's disease.

The deal, announced at BIO 2026, carries total potential value exceeding $2.5 billion and will use Insilico's Pharma.AI platform to drive target-to-candidate discovery across neuroinflammatory, neurodegenerative, and rare neurological indications.

Takeda will use Boltz biomolecular AI models to support structure prediction, affinity estimation, and molecular design in preclinical research.

The company reported that phase I data show approximately 40% of patients remained cancer-free at 10 years, while 2 phase 2 trials are ongoing.

Made Scientific and Pluristyx will integrate iPSC starting materials with CDMO services for cell therapy development.

CytomX and Regeneron aim to deepen their joint effort to develop protease-activated bispecific immunotherapies designed to improve tumor selectivity and widen the therapeutic window in solid tumors.

Hansa Biopharma’s licensing agreement with SERB will support expanded commercialization of imlifidase (Idefirix) for highly sensitized kidney transplant patients across Europe and MENA.

For ATMP developers, the greatest barrier to commercialization is often not scientific discovery or funding, but the challenge of translating research-stage processes into reproducible, GMP-compliant manufacturing without compromising the therapy itself.

Bristol Myers Squibb and Hengrui Pharma’s strategic collaboration supports development of investigational oncology, hematology, and immunology therapies targeting unmet patient needs.

GSK’s licensing agreement for SiranBio’s ALK7-targeting siRNA candidate expands development efforts aimed at reducing cardiometabolic risk in chronic inflammatory diseases.

Ligand’s acquisition of XOMA Royalty expands the royalty model, supporting late-stage drug development and diversifying access to oncology and rare disease therapies.

Novo Nordisk intends to apply advanced AI to analyze complex data, improve target identification, and accelerate development of therapies for chronic diseases

In the collaboration, Regeneron and Telix will combine antibodies with targeted radiation to improve tumor selectivity as they aim to enable more precise treatment and response monitoring in oncology.

Through collaboration, Imagene AI and Daiichi Sankyo will apply multimodal AI to improve biomarker discovery with the goals of advancing precision oncology and enhancing clinical trial success rates.

The acquisition aims to advance next-gen ADCs that target NaPi2b and 5T4 and that show early clinical activity in solid tumors, which highlight advances in precision payload delivery and durability.

For World Health Day 2026, we examine how today’s global partnerships are increasingly aimed at translating research into real-world care and scalable therapies while expanding access worldwide and utilizing AI-driven oncology tools.

In a new collaboration, Tempus and Daiichi Sankyo will apply AI-driven biomarker discovery to improve ADC patient selection with the aim of advancing precision strategies in competitive oncology pipelines.

With the license, Sanofi gains Kali Therapeutics’ tri-specific T-cell engager pipeline candidate, KT501, which targets B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.

The company is targeting the $3 billion pancreatic cancer market with its lead proenzyme therapy candidate, PRP, which is supported by strong preclinical tumor inhibition data and for which a PK assay will be developed and validated.