On July 12th, it was reported that Legendary Biology had received a merger offer; After the news came out, the stock price of Legendary Biology fluctuated. On July 17th, Legendary Biology replied to a reporter from Securities Daily that the company would not make any comments on this market rumor.
Legendary Biotech is an early cell therapy company, and its development of Xidaqiolon is the first domestically produced CAR-T approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Therefore, Legendary Biotech's trends have always been closely monitored by the market. Although there is no concrete evidence to support the news that Legendary Biotech is planning to be acquired, industry insiders told Securities Daily reporters that if the news is true, it is not surprising. "Given the strong sales of Xidaqiolon, for many large pharmaceutical companies in the patent cliff period, acquiring Xidaqiolon through mergers and acquisitions may be a good way to supplement their product lines
This news has once again brought CAR-T into the public eye. Public information shows that CAR-T is an innovative treatment method that utilizes the body's own immune system for tumor treatment. For some patients, CAR-T may achieve "cancer cell clearance" and is considered a new generation of tumor treatment technology.
Legendary Biotech is a "top student" in the domestic CAR-T field, and Xidaqiolon has long been "favored" by multinational pharmaceutical company Johnson&Johnson in the clinical research stage, and has reached a strategic cooperation. It is considered a model case of China's innovative drug "going global".
With the help of Johnson&Johnson's global network, Xidakuolun Saide has rapidly expanded into overseas markets. The product has been approved for market by the FDA, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and has obtained conditional marketing authorization from the European Commission. The data shows that in the first quarter of 2022, 2023, and 2024, the sales of Xidakuolun Sai were $134 million, $500 million, and $157 million, respectively. As of the end of the first quarter of 2024, the sales revenue of $157 million ranked second among similar products with disclosed sales performance, while the growth rate ranked first.
Although the news of the planned acquisition of Legendary Biology has not yet landed, reporters have noticed that similar mergers and equity cooperation have already occurred in the CAR-T field. In December 2023, AstraZeneca announced the acquisition of domestic CAR-T company Genki Biologics, which became the first Chinese innovative drug company to be acquired by an international pharmaceutical company; On July 5th this year, another CAR-T enterprise in China, Reindeer Biology, signed a series of cooperation agreements with Xinda Biology. According to this agreement, Xinda Biology will hold 18% of the shares of Reindeer Biology and become its strategic shareholder.
The choice of domestic CAR-T companies to engage in equity cooperation with large pharmaceutical companies may be related to their own insufficient "hematopoietic capacity". According to data from the National Medical Products Administration, currently, 5 CAR-T drugs have been approved for market in China. The reporter further learned that these five CAR-T models are generally priced around 1 million yuan in the domestic market. Due to its high selling price and lack of effective payment support, CAR-T has not made breakthrough progress in commercialization in China.
The high cost of drugs is mainly related to the highly personalized preparation of CAR-T, and as of now, there is still no effective method to reduce costs. A CAR-T practitioner told reporters that in the preparation of CAR-T, each patient needs a separate production line, which requires over 600 processes and more than 20 professional preparation engineers to complete the production; The prepared product is also limited to the patient's own use only.
To solve the payment difficulties of CAR-T, innovative payment models have become the choice of many CAR-T companies in the domestic market to reduce medication costs. At present, many cities' welfare insurance and commercial health insurance have gradually covered CAR-T. At the beginning of this year, Fosun Kite, the first CAR-T creator in China, announced the launch of a performance-based payment plan, which means that eligible patients who use Fosun Kite's CAR-T therapy and fail to achieve complete remission will receive a certain amount of treatment cost refund.
The reporter will continue to pay attention to the commercialization and implementation of CAR-T in China.