Pfizer and Innovent Biologics have agreed on a strategic global licensing and collaboration partnership to research and develop 12 new breakthrough early-stage and de novo cancer medicines.

The deal includes licensing, co-development and co-commercialisation opportunities across a diverse portfolio of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with novel differentiated payloads and multi-specific antibodies with differentiated immune-engaging features and unique designs.

The agreement includes eight Innovent-originated early-stage programmes and four Pfizer-proposed discovery programmes. The companies will co-develop and share costs for select programmes as they advance these programmes through clinical development.

Jeff Legos, Chief Oncology Officer of Pfizer, said: “By combining Innovent’s discovery and early clinical development with Pfizer’s global research and development and commercialisation capabilities, we have an opportunity not only to strengthen our pipeline, but to accelerate the delivery of breakthroughs that can redefine standards of care and make a meaningful difference in patients’ lives.”

Hui Zhou, Chief R&D Officer (Oncology Pipeline) of Innovent, commented: “By leveraging both companies’ complementary resources, we can develop our early-stage oncology pipeline with greater speed and impact to help bring innovative therapies to patients more efficiently worldwide. We are laying the foundation for a truly global oncology platform that can deliver meaningful and lasting benefits for patients around the world.”

Innovent will be responsible for the phase 1 development of these programmes, after which Pfizer will lead future global development. The agreement also sets out the following licensing and commercialisation structure:
• Pfizer will receive an exclusive global licence for four programmes, and will be responsible for the global development costs
• Pfizer will receive an exclusive licence outside Greater China for four programmes, and will be responsible for the majority of the development costs
• Pfizer and Innovent will co-develop four programmes globally and share the development costs. The companies will co-commercialise in the US and Europe (including the UK), and share the profits. Innovent will retain Greater China rights to these programmes.

Innovent will receive a $650m upfront payment and is eligible for up to $9.85bn in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments. Additionally, Innovent will receive up to double-digit royalties on sales of each licensed product if approved. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.

Regeneron has announced a $2.2bn strategic research collaboration with Parabilis Medicines to discover and develop multiple therapeutic candidates based on Parabilis’ Helicon peptide platform.

This includes a focus on antibody-Helicon conjugates (AHCs), a novel class of therapeutics designed to target challenging and historically ‘undruggable’ targets.

Antibody-drug conjugates traditionally use antibodies to selectively deliver drug payloads into target cells to drive cell death from within. Helicons are stabilised, cell-penetrant alpha-helical peptides designed to engage intracellular protein targets, including flat surfaces not well suited to traditional small molecule binding. The collaboration is designed to explore the use of Helicons both as stand-alone therapies and as part of AHCs.

George Yancopoulos, Board co-Chair, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron, said: “In addition to the potential of Helicons to address previously undruggable targets, the collaboration’s intent to couple Helicons to our VelocImmune derived-antibodies so as to precisely deliver them to cells of interest represents an exciting new approach with the potential to create an entirely new therapeutic class that can span multiple therapeutic areas.”