Novartis Signs Up to $7.8 Billion mRNA Deal With China's Abogen, Paying $575 Million Upfront

NVS has signed a licensing deal with China's Abogen Biosciences worth as much as $7.8 billion, paying $575 million upfront for an option to license ABO2203, an mRNA-encoded T cell engager that targets CD3 and CD19. Abogen is eligible for up to $7.2 billion more in R&D and commercialization milestones, and Novartis can also license other programs from the company.

The drug takes an unusual route. Instead of a T cell engager manufactured in the lab and infused, ABO2203 delivers mRNA instructions so the patient's own cells produce the molecule in vivo, an approach Novartis research head Fiona Marshall said could complement existing therapeutic modalities. Bloomberg and Fierce Biotech describe it as an autoimmune therapy, part of a wave of efforts to use T cell engagers to reset the immune system. Abogen's early clinical data, presented in April, came from patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, where the drug was well tolerated, though three patients had significant adverse events that resolved during the trial.

The deal joins a crowded trend. BMY, GILD and VRTX have all bought into T cell engager technology this year, and BioPharma Dive counts at least a dozen licensing deals for these multispecific drugs between US or European drugmakers and Chinese developers. For Novartis it also follows a difficult September: it paused an autoimmune CAR-T trial after three patient deaths, a genetic medicine partnered with IONS did not show cardiovascular protection, and del-desiran, acquired with Avidity Biosciences, failed a key trial. Jefferies analyst Michael Leuchten wrote that those failures would likely raise questions about Novartis' due diligence and business development approach.

What to watch: whether Novartis exercises its option on ABO2203, the first clinical data in autoimmune patients, and how investors weigh a fresh external bet after September's setbacks. The shares traded around $140 on Friday, below a September 28 high of $146.88 cited in market commentary.