SHANGHAI, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Swiss generic drugmaker Sandoz will pay up to $77 million upfront to Shanghai Henlius Biotech for rights to three biosimilar drugs to treat cholesterol, lupus and colorectal cancer, the Chinese drugmaker said on Monday.
The three treatments are in clinical or pre-clinical development. Biosimilars are similar versions of biologic drugs and are comparable to generic versions of traditional pharmaceuticals.
Sandoz said in a separate statement that it will gain global commercialisation rights to the drugs outside China.
The deal represents a milestone in its “strategy to capitalise on a significant share of the unprecedented global biosimilar loss-of-exclusivity market over the next decade,” it said.
The drugs are biosimilars of cholesterol drug evolocumab, which was marketed as Repatha by Amgen, lupus drug belimumab, discovered by Human Genome Sciences and marketed as Benlysta by GSK, and colorectal cancer drug cetuximab, sold as Erbitux and marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Merck KGaA.
Global sales revenue for evolocumab was about $6.6 billion in 2025, while belimumab brought in $2.5 billion and cetuximab $1.7 billion, Henlius said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, citing data from IQVIA, a health sector research firm.
Under the deal with Sandoz, Henlius is also eligible for development milestone payments up to $160 million and commercial milestone payments up to $77 million.
(Reporting by Andrew Silver in Shanghai; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
