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Partnerships in the biopharma industry have been a long-standing measure of research and development (R&D). Last month saw a number of alliances forming in a range of therapeutic spaces but there has been one serial collaborator that stands out – GSK. The British pharma giant seems to have embarked on a dealmaking journey across the globe to strengthen its presence in various fields.
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GSK goes big in December 2024 with licensing deals
Among GSK’s latest conquests is nabbing the licensing rights to DB-1324, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) from Chinese biotech Duality Biologics. With this deal, GSK gained an exclusive option to develop and commercialize DB-1324 worldwide except for mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. DB-1324 is being tested in preclinical trials as a treatment for gastrointestinal (GI) cancer.
GI cancers account for 26% of cancer cases and 35% of cancer deaths worldwide, according to a report by the World Health Organization, and several patient needs remain unmet and unaddressed. An ADC like DB-1324 aims to kill tumor cells “while sparing healthy ones,” in a bid to take on a more targeted approach to treating cancer.
GSK is betting $30 million upfront on the drug and is willing to spend up to $975 million in milestone payments. Duality Biologics’ chief executive officer (CEO) John Zhu expressed that he is “glad” to collaborate with GSK to “provide innovative treatment options” for patients, in a press release.
GSK, who’s usually known for its focus on infectious diseases, lung diseases, and cancer, also seems to be willing to spread its wings across new indications. The company has now forged a partnership with Danish startup Muna Therapeutics to develop treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. The €33.5 million ($35.14 million) deal will grant the pair the opportunity to validate novel drug targets and explore the outcomes from Muna’s MiND-MAP platform, which applies spatial transcriptomics to brain samples from people with and without Alzheimer’s disease.
“The alliance exemplifies our discovery ethos to utilize advanced data and platform tech to identify high-confidence, human-data-derived, causal targets, which we can support with GSK’s scale and expertise in clinical development and commercialization to bring desperately needed new therapeutic solutions in Alzheimer’s disease,” said Kaivan Khavandi Global Head of Respiratory/Immunology R&D at GSK.
If all goes to plan, Muna is eligible to receive up to €140 million ($147.01 million) per target in milestone payments.
GSK’s December spree doesn’t end there. In a dual partnership with Relation, GSK will fund therapeutic development for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis.
Fibrotic diseases are chronic conditions that occur when the build-up of tissues affects the proper functioning of organs, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver. They are a major cause of death, accounting for up to 45% of deaths in developed countries, according to a research paper published in the National Library of Medicine.
“These diseases have few treatments that address their root causes,” said David Roblin, CEO of Relation in a press release. “By combining Relation’s patient-centric discovery platform with GSK’s global scale and expertise, we have the potential to accelerate the development of transformative medicines for patients who have long awaited new therapies.”
With the help of data from genetics, multi-omics, and machine learning technologies, Relation will map out disease targets. GSK will pay $45 million upfront and around $260 million in milestone payments to Relation to secure worldwide development and commercialization rights to the targets.
Also last month, GSK stretched its position in the RNA space. With several RNA vaccines in development as well as an RNA-editing oligonucleotide in phase 1 trials, its recent pact with Massachusetts-based Rgenta Therapeutics will advance RNA-based small molecules.
The alliance, which has cost GSK $46 million in upfront fees and up to $500 million in milestones per target, will focus on small molecule splice modulators to target multiple diseases, including cancer. Splice modulators alter RNA splicing patterns – a key process in protein synthesis where bits of RNA called introns are removed from the sequence.
The multi-year collaboration will first use Rgenta’s discovery platform to identify drug targets, after which GSK will create the RNA-targeted drugs.
GSK breaks it off with BIO; extends relations with universities
While GSK has been forming ties of late, it severed a major one with the trade group Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), following in the footsteps of other pharma giants such as Takeda, Pfizer, WuXi AppTec – over tensions around the BIOSECURE Act that targets five Chinese life science companies – and UCB. GSK’s exit comes as President-elect Donald Trump looks to shake up the industry, coupled with the possibility of Robert F. Kennedy potentially taking on the top healthcare post in the country.
Nevertheless, partnerships are the cornerstone of the healthcare and biotech sectors and allow pharmas access to a new drug or technology that can re-energize a stagnating pipeline. GSK’s surge in partnerships in recent months spans the healthcare industry and includes universities. It signed a five-year £50 million ($62.91 million) deal with the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospital to come up with ways to treat immune-related diseases more precisely with existing therapies. It also teamed up with scientists at Boston University and Boston Medical Center in October to fight lung diseases like pulmonary fibrosis, which results in the scarring of the lungs. They will work together to create cell models to understand how the disease manifests in the lungs.
GSK takes a crack at neuro-targeted therapeutics
While GSK’s priorities lie in respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and cancer therapeutics, it isn’t entirely set in its ways. It branched out to treat neurological diseases when it entered a pact with the University of Oxford to improve drug discovery back in 2021. More recently, apart from its collaboration with Muna, it also struck a deal with Massachusetts-based Vesalius Therapeutics, two months ago.
GSK wagered $80 million upfront and $570 million in milestone payments in exchange for the development and commercial rights for a preclinical small molecule candidate to treat people with Parkinson’s disease. Vesalius was founded by the life sciences venture capital Flagship Pioneering. The startup incubator and GSK pooled in $150 million in July to identify 10 medicines and vaccines, for which GSK will then have an exclusive option to develop in the clinic for respiratory and immune-related illnesses.
Last year, it also bought the T cell-engager CMG1A46 for autoimmune diseases like lupus from Chinese biotech Chimagen Biosciences. This came after its alliance with Touchlight, manufacturer of doggybone DNA – a double-stranded closed DNA construct – to access its DNA production technology to create DNA templates for mRNA vaccines.
As 2024 was a big one for biotech megadeals, GSK partook in a number of major collaborations, particularly during the tail end of the year. As partnerships help drive innovation through the sharing of resources and expertise, whether any of the deals reach fruition, we will have to look out for them in the coming year(s).
Partnering 2030: Biopharma Report
