Heidelberg Pharma grants Huadong exclusive license to develop and commercialize HDP-101 and HDP-103 in Asia (excluding Japan), plus exclusive opt-in rights for two more pipeline candidates, with a total deal value of up to USD 930 million (EUR 825 million)
Huadong will also participate in a rights issue and acquire a percentage of current shareholdings from existing shareholders including dievini, totaling EUR 105 million
Huadong to become second largest shareholder; dievini remains largest shareholder
Heidelberg Pharma plans rights issue of up to EUR 80 million at EUR 6.44 per share
Conference call on Monday, 28th February 2022 at 01:00 pm CET
Ladenburg, Germany, 28 February 2022 – Heidelberg Pharma AG (FSE: HPHA) and Huadong Medicine Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China, (SZ000963; Huadong) today announced that the companies have entered into a strategic partnership with the signing of an exclusive licensing agreement as well as an investment agreement. The agreements were concluded with wholly owned subsidiaries of Huadong, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in China with a focus on oncology and ADC research, development and commercialization.
Dr. Jan Schmidt-Brand, CEO and CFO of Heidelberg Pharma, commented:“We are excited to enter this major partnership with Huadong. Through this strategic collaboration, we will gain another valuable and reliable long-term investor who fully supports our strategy to become a global ADC player, and we will be able to speed up our product development and broaden our pipeline. We are convinced that our partner’s strong development and commercialization expertise and knowledge of Asia will both shorten the time to market and maximize the commercial opportunity for our ATAC® products in this important territory.”
Mr. Liang Lu, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Huadong Medicine, added: “Heidelberg Pharma is an emerging leader in the ADC space. We are pleased to partner with Heidelberg Pharma and bring the best ADC products to the cancer patients in Asia. The collaboration further strengthens Huadong’s ADC portfolio and expands our ADC R&D capabilities. Huadong will contribute Asian patients to global clinical trials to help accelerate products development. We are also committed to supporting Heidelberg Pharma to become a world ADC leader, by the substantial equity investment and access to Huadong’s ADC ecosystem.”
Prof. Dr. Christof Hettich, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Heidelberg Pharma and Managing Partner of dievini, said: “I am delighted that the Heidelberg Pharma team has entered into this strategic partnership with a strong Asian partner and new shareholder who shares the Company’s vision. We have been supporting Heidelberg Pharma since 2004 and are happy to see that their legacy assets have been developing nicely through partnerships and the new ATAC® projects have been generating high interest from pharma companies. The dievini team is looking forward to the clinical development of the pipeline with the goal of bringing new, much-needed treatment options to cancer patients.”
The strategic partnership includes the following agreements:
ATAC® licensing agreement
Heidelberg Pharma has granted Huadong exclusive development and commercialization rights for HDP-101(BCMA-ATAC) and HDP-103 (PSMA-ATAC) for Asia and is eligible to receive an up front payment of USD 20 million (EUR 17.5 million) and milestone payments of up to USD 449 million (EUR 400 million), as well as tiered royalties ranging from single to low double digit percentages for each candidate.