Blueprint Medicines and CStone Pharmaceuticals Announce Exclusive Collaboration and License Agreement
Blueprint Medicines Corporation and CStone Pharmaceuticals announced an exclusive collaboration and license agreement for the development and commercialization of avapritinib, BLU-554 and BLU-667 in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, either as monotherapies or combination therapies. Discovered and developed by Blueprint Medicines, avapritinib, BLU-554 and BLU-667 are potent and highly selective investigational kinase medicines that have each demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept in genomically defined subsets of patients with cancer. Blueprint Medicines will retain all rights to the licensed products in the rest of the world.
The collaboration strengthens CStone Pharmaceuticals’ portfolio with exclusive rights in the territory to three clinical-stage targeted therapies and expands Blueprint Medicines’ global efforts to address patient populations with high unmet needs. CStone Pharmaceuticals will lead clinical development of the licensed products in the territory by leveraging its regulatory expertise and broad local network, with the goal of commercializing the licensed products in the territory either as monotherapies or combination therapies. In addition, the companies plan to initiate a proof-of-concept clinical trial in China evaluating BLU-554 in combination with CS1001, a clinical-stage anti-programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) immunotherapy being developed by CStone Pharmaceuticals, as a first-line therapy for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
“Founded by seasoned executives with deep global and regional development experience and with a growing portfolio of potentially complementary cancer therapies, CStone Pharmaceuticals is an ideal partner in China,” said Jeff Albers, Chief Executive Officer of Blueprint Medicines. “With recent regulatory reforms in China and the emergence of innovative companies like CStone Pharmaceuticals, we believe this forward-looking collaboration has the potential to expand our ability to address significant patient needs in Greater China while supporting global development of avapritinib, BLU-554 and BLU-667. In particular, we are excited to announce the expansion of the BLU-554 clinical development program in China, where more than half of all new cases of hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide occur each year.”
“We are thrilled to enter into this collaboration with Blueprint Medicines, a leader in the discovery and development of highly selective kinase medicines, as the first step in a potentially long-term strategic partnership,” said Frank Jiang, Chief Executive Officer of CStone Pharmaceuticals. “Based on the compelling clinical data reported to date, we believe Blueprint Medicines’ targeted therapies – avapritinib, BLU-554 and BLU-667 – hold promise for dramatically altering the treatment landscape for patients in China with gastrointestinal stromal tumors, hepatocellular carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer and other cancers. In addition, our rich pipeline of investigational cancer medicines enables exploration of combination treatment approaches with the potential to further improve patient outcomes worldwide.”
Subject to the terms of the agreement, Blueprint Medicines will receive an upfront cash payment of $40.0 million and will be eligible to receive up to approximately $346.0 million in potential milestone payments, including $118.5 millionrelated to development and regulatory milestones and $227.5 million related to sales-based milestones. In addition, CStone Pharmaceuticals will be obligated to pay Blueprint Medicines tiered percentage royalties on a licensed product-by-licensed product basis ranging from the mid-teens to low twenties on annual net sales of each licensed product in the territory, subject to adjustment in specified circumstances.
Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, CStone Pharmaceuticals will be responsible for conducting all development and commercialization activities in the territory related to the licensed products. In addition, CStone Pharmaceuticals will be responsible for costs related to the development of the licensed products in the territory, other than specified costs related to the development of BLU-554 as a combination therapy in the territory that will be shared by the companies.