Dive Brief:
- Royalty Pharma has grabbed rights to a share in revenue from lung cancer drug Imdelltra, announcing Monday it will pay $885 million upfront for BeOne Medicine’s royalties paid by partner Amgen for sales outside China. BeOne, formerly known as BeiGene, has rights to Imdelltra revenue because of a $2.7 billion collaboration deal it struck with Amgen in 2019.
- Per deal terms, BeOne has the option to sell another chunk of Imdelltra royalties in the next year for $65 million, bringing the deal total to around $950 million. Royalty said the initial royalty stream amounted to “approximately 7%” of worldwide net sales.
- Launched in 2024 for small cell lung cancer, Imdelltra earned sales of $215 million through the first six months of 2025, most of it in the U.S. under an accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Amgen recently reported data from a clinical trial showing the drug extends survival compared with chemotherapy, which should secure its place on the market.
Dive Insight
BeOne is now well established as a commercial drugmaker, recording total sales of $2.4 billion through the first six months of the year from drugs it developed as well as some of Amgen’s products in China. However, it also has significant expenses, burning about $2 billion over the same time — about half on research and development of its own drugs like Brukinsa and sonrotoclax.
That profit picture for the first half looks like it will be sustained for the full year, as BeOne’s executives forecast positive operating income and cash flow even before this deal was announced. The deal will only build on that momentum, executives said Monday.
“A strong balance sheet is a hallmark of the most successful companies in our industry, and this transaction provides increased operational and strategic flexibility as we continue to execute our business strategy for the long term,” said CFO Aaron Rosenberg, in a statement.
A so-called bispecific antibody, Imdelltra triggers an immune response to cells expressing a protein called DLL-3, common among tumor cells in small cell cancer, a hard-to-treat disease that until recently has had few innovative treatments. While Merck & Co.’s immunotherapy Keytruda and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo have gained approval for small cell lung cancer, they were withdrawn when confirmatory data didn’t support their use. Roche’s Tecentriq can be used in certain patients, however.
“Imdelltra is reshaping the treatment paradigm for patients with small cell lung cancer, a highly aggressive disease with few treatment options,” said Pablo Legorreta, Royalty’s CEO, in a statement. “Today’s transaction is consistent with our strategy of acquiring royalties on highly transformative products in life sciences.”
Royalty Pharma has been active in buying revenue streams recently, striking deals with Biogen, Cytokinetics, Sanofi and Agios.
