Bristol to pay BioNTech pp to $11.1 billion in cancer treatment deal

By Naomi Kresge

Bloomberg

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. will pay BioNTech SE as much as $11.1 billion to license a next-generation cancer drug, as competition intensifies in an area of oncology that seeks to harness the immune system to attack tumors.

The German biotech will receive $1.5 billion upfront and $2 billion in installments through 2028, the companies said Monday. BioNTech will also be eligible for as much as $7.6 billion in milestone payments, and the partners will split development and manufacturing costs and profits equally.

It’s the latest in a slew of deals as pharmaceutical companies battle for a share of a market currently led by Merck & Co.’s Keytruda, the world’s best-selling drug. Global sales of immuno-oncology treatments could reach $60 billion a year by 2027, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Bristol-Myers has been pumping billions into its pipeline ahead of a patent cliff. Its deal for BioNTech’s compound — dubbed BNT327 — comes weeks after rival Pfizer Inc. agreed to pay 3SBio Inc. as much as $6.1 billion, a record for a Chinese biotech, to license a similar cancer asset.

It also marks a major payoff for BioNTech, which licensed BNT327 from Chinese biotech Biotheus in 2023 and later bought the company outright for up to $950 million. US-listed shares in BioNTech rose as much as 15% in premarket trading, with shares in Bristol-Myers edging about 1% higher.

Study data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting suggests the Pfizer asset may be the most effective, though BioNTech is ahead in the effort to expand use of such treatments to more types of cancers, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sam Fazeli said in a note Monday.

Experimental Drugs

This new category of cancer treatments effectively took off last year when Chinese biotech Akeso Inc. and its US partner Summit Therapeutics Inc. said their experimental drug had beaten Keytruda in a Chinese clinical trial.

The Akeso-Summit compound, and others like BioNTech’s BNT327, combine existing immune-oncology technology similar to Keytruda’s with a second type of medicine that cuts off the blood and oxygen supply to tumors. The idea is to make immune treatments that will be effective for more patients.

It’s still unclear whether the new drugs will replace Keytruda. Summit said Friday that although its asset reduced the risk of cancer progression in a global late-stage trial, compared to chemotherapy alone, it hadn’t yet been shown to extend patients’ lives — the gold standard in oncology. Data from a head-to-head study versus Keytruda in patients outside China is potentially years away.

Merck’s shares were little changed in premarket trading in New York.

The deal between Bristol-Myers and BioNTech gives both companies the right to study either partner’s other experimental compounds together with BNT327. That fits a BioNTech strategy of pursuing combination treatments for tumors.

Though BioNTech rose to prominence with the Covid-19 vaccine it licensed to Pfizer, it was founded before the global pandemic as a cancer company. It has deployed much of its Covid windfall back into the field of oncology.

Bristol-Myers has spent more than $20 billion on acquisitions since late 2023 to bolster its pipeline. Opdivo, its blockbuster cancer immunotherapy, is expected to meet pricing pressure before the end of the decade, and its blood thinner Eliquis will have generic competition in 2028.

--With assistance from Amber Tong and Damian Garde.

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