This article**: Times Finance Author: Wen Ruonan
Picture worm creativity.
Within two days, LianBio (LianUS) CEOs and CFOs have left one after another.
On December 19, local time in the United States, LianBio announced on its official website that the company's chief executive officer (CEO) Wang Yizhe has resigned from the company to pursue other opportunities. Adam Stone, chief investment officer of Perceptive Advisors and a member of the board of directors of LianBio, will serve as interim chief executive officer.
Just one day later, LianBio announced the departure of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Yi Larson. Currently, the Company has appointed Ehong (Maggie) Gu, current Vice President and Global Treasurer, as Interim Chief Financial Officer.
The high-level personnel changes have raised questions about the stability of the LianBio team. Regarding the personnel changes and the company's business arrangements and other related matters, Times Finance contacted LianBio, and the relevant person said, "We will not respond for the time being".
In the secondary market, on December 20, local time in the United States, LianBio closed at 4$36 shares, total market capitalization 4$7.1 billion.
The main license-in mode is used.
Founded in August 2020 in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, LianBio is an innovative drug company founded and incubated by Perceptive Advisors, a U.S.-based biopharmaceutical investment company, to advance drug discovery and accelerate the launch of disruptive drugs in China and other major Asian markets. In November 2021, LianBio was listed on the NASDAQ.
Yizhe Wang has served as the CEO of LianBio since May 2021 and is the second head of the company. Prior to joining LianBio, Wang held senior management positions at multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, and Eli Lilly. During the pandemic in 2020, he served as the global platform leader for Eli Lilly Research's anti-COVID** program, helping Eli Lilly's new crown antibody drug bamlanivimab obtain emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
License-in is the most prominent label on LianBio. Since its inception, LianBio has been expanding its R&D pipeline on a license-in model. Up to now, its existing 7 pipelines under research are all introduced.
The license-in model is a transaction model with drug intellectual property licensing as the core. According to the CITIC ** research report, the license-in is to pay a certain down payment to the product licensor, and agree on a certain amount of milestone payment and future sales commission, so as to obtain the commercial rights and interests of product development, production and sales in certain countries and regions, its essence is the division of labor and cooperation, that is, different enterprises layout different stages of research and development, and work together in terms of capital and technology to achieve risk sharing and revenue sharing.
However, a veteran in the pharmaceutical industry told Times Finance that "for new drug development companies, the clinical development ability and clinical management ability after license-in are very important, and if the speed of promotion after license-in is not as fast as others or the promotion of clinical design is unreasonable, resulting in drug research and development failure, this is also not good." In addition, as an innovative drug company, if all pipelines are license-in, then its own independent research and development capabilities are not reflected. ”
"Diversification" is also one of the characteristics of LianBio's product portfolio, covering cardiovascular, ophthalmology, oncology and other fields.
Wang Yizhe said in an interview last year, "In the past 14 months since taking office, I seem to have entered several different companies." ”
Prior to this personnel change, on December 1, LianBio received an acquisition proposal. Concentra Biosciences, LLC, controlled by Tang Capital Partners, LP, has made an unsolicited offer to acquire 100% of LianBio's shares.
However, LianBio rejected the offer five days later on the grounds that "the Board of Directors unanimously believes that the proposal undervalues the Company and is not in the best interests of LianBio and its shareholders."
The business of buying low and selling high.
Wang Yizhe once said in an interview with **, "LianBio's license-in is not just to buy the product and end it after development, but to run the commercialization concept through the entire pharmaceutical life cycle." Because it's only when innovative drugs are finally brought to market that patients can really benefit."
Currently, LianBio does not have a single product on the market. The drug for symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (OHCM), M**Acamten, was originally the closest product to commercialization.
Originally developed by Myokaradia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb, M**Acamten is the world's first heart-specific myosin allosteric inhibitor. In August 2020, LianBio made an upfront payment of $40 million and nearly $1The US$500 million milestone** has won the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the drug in Greater China, Thailand and Singapore.
In April 2022, M**Acamten was approved by the US FDA for patients with symptomatic New York Heart Association (NYHA) grade II-III obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy** to improve functional capacity and symptoms.
In May and June 2023, M**Acamten was approved in Macau, China and Singapore, respectively, for symptomatic patients with OHCM.
Domestically, in April 2023, the New Drug Application (NDA) for M**Acamten for symptomatic OHCM** patients was accepted by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and included in the priority reviewLater that month, LianBio announced that the Phase III Explorer-CN study of m**acamten in symptomatic OHCM patients in China met its primary endpoint.
However, before M**Acamten was officially approved in China, LianBio sold it. In October this year, LianBio signed an agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb to grant Bristol-Myers Squibb exclusive rights to develop and commercialize M**Acamten in markets including Chinese mainland, while terminating LianBio's previous exclusive license agreement with Myokaradia.
The consideration for this transaction is 3A one-time payment of $500 million, as well as up to $1$27.5 billion in remaining milestone payments. In addition, Bristol-Myers Squibb expects to provide employment opportunities to certain LianBio personnel involved in the development and commercialization of m**acamten.
The "inverted" operation of buying low and selling high to make the difference also occurred in the cooperation between LianBio and Pfizer.
In December 2022, Pfizer acquired the rights to develop and commercialize respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)** drug candidate sisunatovir from LianBio in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.
Sisunatovir was originally a product of Reviral. In June 2022, Pfizer completed the acquisition of Reviral and the company's portfolio of RSV** product candidates, but this acquisition does not include the development and commercialization rights of sisunatovir in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, which was previously granted to LianBio by Reviral in March 2021.
As part of the transaction, Pfizer will return the $20 million upfront payment previously made by LianBio. At the same time, LianBio is also eligible to earn up to 1$3.5 billion in potential development and commercial milestone payments, as well as a tiered share of sales as a low-single-digit percentage of net drug sales in licensed territories.
In the existing pipeline, the drug TP-03 (025% lotelaner ophthalmic solution) progresses more rapidly. In March 2021, LianBio partnered with TERSUS to license the development and commercialization of TP-03 in Greater China. In October, LianBio announced topline data from the Phase 3 study of LIBRA in Chinese patients with Demodex blepharitis in China.
In addition, the bile duct cancer targeted drug Infiglatinib (BGJ398) has entered Phase 3 clinical trials in the first-line cholangiocarcinoma and second-line cholangiocarcinoma indications.
According to the financial report, as of the end of the third quarter of this year, LianBio's net loss for the year was $69.7 million, compared with a net loss of $92 million in the same period last year. In terms of cash flow, as of the end of the third quarter of this year, its total cash, cash equivalents, valuable** and restricted cash was 2$52.2 billion.