(Yicai) March 4 -- Sino Biopharmaceutical has licensed its newly approved anti-fibrotic drug to the French drugmaker Sanofi, saying it will receive as much as USD1.5 billion in return.

The agreement giving Paris-based Sanofi the global development, production, and commercialization rights to the first-in-class JAK/ROCK dual-target inhibitor Rovadicitinib was announced today by Sino Biopharm and its subsidiary Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group.

Under the deal, Beijing-based Sino Biopharm will receive an upfront payment of USD135 million, followed by potential development, regulation, and sales milestone payments of up to USD1.4 billion, as well as a double-digit sales commission.

Rovadicitinib is the first drug to curb inflammation and fibrosis through the synergistic action of both the JAK/STAT and ROCK pathways. It was approved in China by the National Medical Products Administration last month for the treatment of certain forms of myelofibrosis, a rare, chronic blood cancer. 

The drug has also shown significant potential in the treatment of chronic graft-versus-host disease. For this use, it has entered Phase III clinical trials in China and has been approved for Phase II clinical research in the United States, Sino Biopharm said.

The company’s shares [HKG: 1177[ closed flat at HKD5.71 (73 US cents) apiece in Hong Kong today. The stock has fallen 7.6 percent since the end of last year.

In another sign of the growing global importance of China’s pharmaceutical sector, Shanghai-headquartered Antengene announced on the same day a drug licensing deal with Belgian biopharmaceutical company UCB.

Antengene will grant UCB the global development, production, and commercialization rights to ATG-201, a autoimmune diseases drug under development, in exchange for an initial payment of USD80 million and a milestone payment of as much as USD1.1 billion.

Outbound licensing deals involving novel drugs developed in China have ballooned. Some 157 such deals worth a combined USD135.7 billion were penned last year, up 67 percent and 161 percent respectively from 2024 to new record highs, according to figures from pharmaceutical and biotech data platform PharmCube.

The momentum has intensified this year. In January and February alone Chinese firms inked 44 outbound licensing agreements, totaling USD53.3 billion, which already exceeds a third of last year’s overall sum.

Editor: Tom Litting