Less than a year after the end of a PD-1 deal with Novartis, BeiGene is looking at new partnerships that could bring in new assets it could develop or commercialize, or out-license some of its substantial cancer pipeline.
In an interview with Endpoints News, BeiGene CEO John Oyler talked through the company’s expansive oncology portfolio and how its strategy would play out in the coming years. In September, Novartis ended a second collaboration program with BeiGene, handing back the rights to its anti-PD-1 antibody tislelizumab. But BeiGene says it has more than 35 drugs in development, and plans to look for places where it can strike new deals.
“We’ve really been able to find times and places where there’s things that can work well for both parties,” Oyler said.
That includes a recognition that, while the company has a strong footprint in hematology — its drug Brukinsa generated $489 million in sales in the first quarter — its capabilities in solid tumors and other diseases are far smaller. “We’re not the best organization in the world to commercialize solid tumor assets in the US and Europe today,” Oyler said. “We’re not the world experts outside of oncology, and clinical development in different areas.”
BeiGene, which has roots in the US and China, has poured resources into growing an in-house clinical development structure as well as a substantial China commercial footprint. It has an arrangement with Amgen, through which BeiGene is commercializing several drugs in China. And Oyler sees more partnerships in the company’s future.
“We’d love to find ways to leverage what we have — whether it’s manufacturing capability, platforms, ADCs or degraders or different therapeutic areas — and find smart ways to work together,” he said.
He used breast cancer as an example. BeiGene has a CDK4 inhibitor, BGB-43395, in Phase 1. “There are some companies that are really strong in breast cancer and have some really complementary stuff,” Oyler said. “When you think about where you want your products to go, you start looking in those areas because you want to do that combination work.”
The company has also spent several years working on an ADC linker that it believes could be useful with a number of cancer targets. But it’s also looked at whether it might be able to conjugate non-chemotherapy molecules and go after other diseases, such as in inflammation and immunology, Oyler said.
Those non-cancer targets might make more sense for a partner. “We also have talked to third parties about using this platform and capability,” he said.
US-China tensions
Because of its ties to China, the company has faced questions about whether its business could be at risk amid the growing tensions and focus in Washington on China-based life sciences companies. On Wednesday, the Biosecure Act, which targets those companies, took an important legislative step forward in the US House of Representatives.
BeiGene gets active pharmaceutical ingredients for Brukinsa from WuXi AppTec, one of the companies that could be barred from doing business with US drugmakers. BeiGene has said that it’s been working to get a second supplier in place, a process that’s “near completion and will be soon active,” according to a recent financial filing.
Oyler said the second supplier is based in Switzerland, but declined to name the company. “We are near the end of that process,” he said.
He made clear that BeiGene does not work with BGI, a DNA sequencing company that’s also targeted by the law, and that it conducts a huge amount of its work in-house, as opposed to relying on contractors like those targeted by the legislation.
“The vast majority of our company, we don’t work with third parties,” Oyler said.
“I do think there’s a lot of companies that have grown to rely on third parties, and a lot of the third parties that have the largest scale and the best timing and cost structure are in China. And that could create a problem for some of the players in the industry,” he said. “But for us, we don’t see that as an issue.”