Chinese biopharmaceutical company Innovent Biologics (HKG:1801) has secured an oncology licensing deal with New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer that could potentially be worth up to $10.5 billion.
Innovent will receive a $650 million upfront payment and is eligible for up to $9.85 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, according to a joint release on Thursday.
The company is also entitled to up to "double-digit" royalties on net sales of each approved product.
The deal covers 12 early-stage and de novo cancer drug programs from Innovent's pipeline, spanning antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with novel payloads and multi-specific antibodies with immune-engaging features, according to the release.
Eight of the 12 programs originated by Innovent's early-stage programs, while the remaining four are Pfizer-proposed discovery programs.
Under the terms of the deal, Innovent will carry out Phase 1 clinical trials of these programs before Pfizer takes over global development.
"This agreement brings together best-in-industry expertise of Pfizer and Innovent to advance novel cancer medicines to patients at a global scale," said Dr. Hui Zhou, Chief R&D Officer (Oncology Pipeline) of Innovent.
"By leveraging both companies' complementary resources, we can develop our early-stage oncology pipeline with greater speed and impact to help bring innovative therapies to patients more efficiently worldwide."
For Innovent, the agreement further bolsters its presence in the biopharmaceutical market. The company said it has launched 18 products in the market, has five assets in Phase III or pivotal clinical trials and 14 more molecules in early clinical stage.
The company has partnered with over 30 global healthcare companies, including Eli Lilly, Roche, Takeda, Sanofi, Incyte, LG Chem (KRX:051910) and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
"This collaboration brings together two highly complementary engines of innovation with a shared ambition to move faster, go further and deliver truly transformative medicines to patients who are waiting," said Jeff Legos, Chief Oncology Officer, Pfizer.
The deal with Pfizer is subject to regulatory approvals.
The agreement marks Innovent's latest billion-dollar licensing deal with a multinational pharma company after striking a license and collaboration deal with Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical (TYO:4502) in December 2025.
As part of that deal, Innovent licensed two late-stage cancer drug candidates, IBI363 and IBI343, to Takeda, and granted an option over early-stage asset IBI3001. The agreement included an upfront payment of about $1.2 billion.
The deal also saw Innovent issuing about 6.9 million new shares to Takeda at HK$112.56 each. The shares represent roughly 0.4% of Innovent's enlarged share capital and generated net proceeds of about HK$777 million.
Innovent's shares jumped 6% in early-morning trade in Hong Kong on Friday.
