This article only represents the author's own views.
Squeezed by competition at home, China’s growing field of self-developed drug makers are taking a page from their global peers and earning extra cash by licensing their drugs to overseas partners. That lets them quickly expand abroad, and milk more money from their intellectual property. But such agreements are a sort of minefield, and potential earnings can ultimately be far less than the headline numbers touted in big new announcements.
A case in point is Shanghai Henlius Biotech, Inc. (2696.HK), which last week announced some revisions to a licensing agreement with Essex Bio-Investment (1061.HK) that were far lower-profile than the pair’s announcement of the original 2020 deal. That original deal saw the pair agree to jointly develop the recombinant humanized anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody HLX04-O for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration, with Essex exclusively licensed to register, produce and commercialize the product worldwide.