EQRx: "Introduction" accelerator for overseas innovative drugs

With the intensified competition of domestic Me too innovative drugs, expanding the international market and embracing the European and American markets, which are more friendly to the pricing of innovative drugs, seems to become an increasingly clear industry consensus

Source: EQRx official website screenshot

Founded: Drug Pricing Disruptor

At the beginning of 2020, the new crown virus ravaged the world.

Alexis Borisy

The company's CEO is Alexis Borisy, a serial entrepreneur in the field of biotechnology, and a well-known legend in the industry

Since 1999, Alexis has started a partnership with others.

There are also rumors that Alexis’s “first pot of gold” began when he worked and sold peanuts on the Wisconsin football field, and finally became the big gold owner of the global biomedical industry

In January 2021, EQRx announced the completion of a US$500 million Series B financing; on August 6, 2021, EQRx announced that it intends to go public through SPAC, raising US$1.

In other words, EQRx, which was founded only one and a half years ago, has raised a total of 2.

By the way, SPAC is a special purpose acquisition company, also known as a "blank check company.

SEC documents show that EQRx originally planned to raise US$1.

Alexis once told the media that EQRx’s business model is to develop new drugs at low cost and sell them at low prices.

Compared with those that are all first/best in class pipelines, EQRx said with a high profile that it is me too

Melanie Nallicheri

At the same time that the company announced its IPO and fundraising news, it also announced organizational changes, including CEO Alexis Borisy will be transferred to the role of chairman, the company's former president and chief operating officer Melanie Nallicheri will be promoted to CEO, Melanie had Is the Chief Commercial Officer of Foundation Medicine

Another change is that Dr.

Cooperation: prefer Chinese products

EQRx claims that there are more than 10 assets in the product pipeline, and will continue to strengthen BD cooperation and increase the frequency of introduction

Among them, the two fastest-growing products are: PD-L1 suglimumab imported from CStone Pharmaceuticals, and EGFR-TKI inhibitor Ametinib imported from Hausen Pharmaceuticals

Source: NextPharma

Public information shows that the earliest disclosed cooperation of EQRx began with Hausen Pharmaceuticals

In July 2020, Hausen Pharmaceuticals entered into a strategic cooperation and licensing agreement with EQRx to grant EQRx an exclusive license to develop, produce and commercialize the former third-generation EGFR-TKI Ametinib (and any other Ametinib products), the treatment areas involved include cancer, cancer-related and immune inflammatory diseases
.
The first payment, registration and development milestone payments for this transaction amounted to approximately US$100 million
.

Ametinib was approved for marketing in China in March 2020 for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who have been previously treated with EGFR-TKI and have a T790M mutation
.
This is the first domestic third-generation EGFR-TKI approved for marketing and the second third-generation EGFR-TKI approved for marketing worldwide
.

In October of the same year, CStone Pharmaceuticals exclusively authorized EQRx to develop and commercialize sugarizumab (CS1001.
anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody) and CS1003 (anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody) two tumor immunizations outside of Greater China.
Treatment products
.
According to the agreement, CStone Pharmaceuticals will receive a down payment of US$150 million and milestone payments of up to US$1.
15 billion, as well as additional tiered royalties
.

EQRx is currently valued at approximately US$4 billion
.
According to its new CEO, the current valuation is mainly supported by Shuglizumab and Ametinib, which have the fastest registration speed.
The value of Shuglizumab accounts for nearly three-quarters of the company's overall valuation
.

Qi Si: After involution, where do we go?

However, from the perspective of the industry, the reason why EQRx is favored by capital is related to its innovative business model and competitive strategy
.
From the perspective of indications layout, EQRx focuses on the tumor and inflammation fields, which have always been the emerging fields of "high-priced drugs" abroad, with major clinical needs and prominent payment contradictions on a global scale
.

On the other hand, from the perspective of target selection, since they are all mature targets, their success rate is relatively high, the cost is relatively low, and the risk is relatively small, and they can be marketed more quickly through introduction
.
And a very important point, EQRx disclosed in the financing that it maintains close contact with major medical payers, which may pave the way for the commercialization of its me too products
.

It is also said that it is a good business model to use China's low-cost research and development results to "kill the rich and help the poor" in the US market.
It is indeed beneficial to the American people to kill the sky-high drug prices in the United States.
The US medical insurance and commercial insurance will also do this.
The pattern is pleasant to hear
.

All in all, this kind of business model innovation will accelerate the arrival of "low-price" drugs in the world
.
There are even opinions that in the future, medicines will become cheaper and even cheaper, but it does not rule out that companies build ecosystems as a starting point and serve as a "flow cut" for contacting patient groups
.
In other words, the medicine is cheap, but the service is valuable
.

Of course, this logic is not difficult to understand.
In addition to the global trend of aging, the decline in fertility is also one of the challenges affecting future global development
.
At a time when the new productivity of drug development has not yet appeared, and the labor cost is getting higher and higher, if the service price does not increase, why does it increase the price?

This model also reminds our domestic pharmaceutical companies that instead of relying on their own efforts to list overseas and make dollars overseas, it is better to focus on our old friends and serve some third world countries.
After all, there are brothers in the four seas
.

Reference

1.
EQRx and Exscientia, a pair of self->

2.
Drug pricing disruptor EQRx makes the big leagues with $1.
8B SPAC deal and a new CEO at the helm