These pharmaceutical companies continue to make big moves: East China, Xinda...

Under the background of crowded innovative drug track, serious involution, and difficulty in going overseas, the license in model is booming in China
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License in is a method of product introduction, the core of which is that the "introducer" of the drug pays the introduction fee to the "authorizer" of the drug, so as to obtain the commercialization of the research and development, production and sales of the product in certain countries (or regions).
rights
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Generally, the introduction fee includes a certain down payment, and agrees a certain amount of milestone fee and sales share after the drug is launched
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01 Big action License in constantly

Only in the first quarter, domestic pharmaceutical companies have conducted a number of license in transactions
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Huadong Medicine will pay Kiniksa an upfront payment of US$22 million, development, registration and sales milestone payments of up to US$640 million, as well as tiered double-digit royalties on net sales
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The specific license in transactions from January to February 2022 are as follows
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Table 1 License in transactions from January to February 2022 (incomplete statistics)

02 The tumor field is the "main theme" of license in

Among the 7 license in transactions in 2022 counted in this article, a total of two transactions are the introduction of anti-tumor drugs.
At present, oncology is the most popular therapeutic area in license in transactions since 2022
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In addition, judging from the distribution of license in disease treatment fields in the past 6 years, the tumor field is also the main theme of the entire license in transaction
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Especially in the past three years, as the research and development of targets such as PD-1, PD-L1, EGFR and HER2 has entered the fast lane, license in transactions in the tumor field have shown a blowout growth, as shown in Figure 1
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It is worth mentioning that due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutic drugs have also surged in the license in transaction projects in the past two years
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Figure 1 The number of license in oncology transactions from 2016 to 2021

03 Serious involution of innovative drugs, License in may usher in spring

The reason why the license in model is becoming more and more popular in China is that the general background is the normalization and institutionalization of drug purchase in bulk, the generic drug market is not expected to be much worse than before, and the research and development of innovative drugs has become the general trend
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However, due to the crowded domestic innovative drug market and serious involution, pharmaceutical companies with insufficient innovation capabilities in certain fields can only introduce new technologies and new drugs through license in to improve the efficiency of their product R&D and marketing
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We can clearly see the advantages of the license in mode:

First of all, it can enrich the product line of the importing company.
Compared with the sky-high investment and ultra-long cycle of new drug research and development, the same investment can completely introduce multiple different products at the same time, and the therapeutic field of drugs does not have to be limited by existing drugs.
The ability of the team can also be introduced through License in to make up for the lack of ability of the existing R&D team;

Secondly, it can quickly enter the domestic market.
Through the license in method, the drug can almost achieve a product cycle that is synchronized with foreign advanced products, which means that it can enter the domestic market at the first time and establish a first-mover advantage;

Finally, the importing company can obtain the intellectual property rights of innovative drugs in China or around the world through the license in, quickly enhance the technical strength of its own team, obtain the right to secondary development patents, and build the foundation for the research and development of its own intellectual property rights
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In general, when there is not enough cash flow to support R&D and the sales capacity is weak, license in has many advantages such as short R&D cycle, less initial investment, and rapid technology accumulation, which can make up for the shortcomings of the importer's product line.
, to achieve "curve overtaking" on the product
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04 Conclusion

Although the license in mode has many of the above advantages, whether the license in mode is suitable for all local pharmaceutical companies remains to be tested by the market in the future
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Moreover, from the perspective of competition in the domestic market, under the influence of factors such as the continuous shortening of the life cycle of domestic innovative drugs and the strong bargaining power of medical insurance payers, the profitability of domestic innovative drugs after commercialization is greatly shrinking
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