Japan’s Ono Pharmaceutical is paying $80 million upfront for the regional rights to a trio of Biohaven’s IgG degraders, led by a phase 3-stage Grave’s disease prospect.
In return for the rights to the three candidates in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Ono also agreed to a $20 million milestone payment and a 20% cut of the profits from sales in the licensed territories.
The deal includes BHV-1300, a protein degrader designed to selectively target IgG1, 2 and 4 while sparing IgG3. Biohaven unveiled data back in January that suggested that a patient with Graves’ disease who received the IgG MoDE degrader had experienced complete suppression of disease-causing TSH receptor-stimulating antibodies.
BHV-1300 is designed for easy self-administration via a “patient-friendly autoinjector,” according to the company, and is currently being evaluated in a phase 3 trial in Graves' disease.
The deal with Ono also spans a pair of next-generation follow-on degraders dubbed BHV-1310 and BHV-1320. All three of the assets on the table can trace their origins to the Spiegel Lab at Yale University.
“Ono will be the ideal partner to bring this innovative immune-modulating technology to patients across Japan and key Asian markets,” said Biohaven CEO Vlad Coric, M.D., who described the deal as “the first regional collaboration for an extracellular protein degrader.”
“Few companies in the world can match Ono's innovation in drug development or its demonstrated ability to translate breakthrough science into transformative therapies, as it did in helping to define modern cancer immunotherapy,” Coric added.
Extracellular protein degraders are one of three areas that Biohaven persevere with after the company stripped back its R&D ambitions in March.
Biohaven’s degrader programs are a focus for investors, William Blair analysts said, pointing to “promising” early biomarker activity in a trial of the TRAP degrader BHV-1400 in IgA nephropathy.
For Ono—which co-developed the cancer blockbuster Opdivo with Bristol Myers Squibb—the Biohaven deal is a chance to strengthen the pharma’s late-stage immunology and inflammation offering, which Chief Operating Officer Toichi Takino, Ph.D., described as “one of Ono's key focus areas.”
The Tokyo-based biopharma’s I&I pipeline includes bifunctional fusion proteins licensed from Shattuck Labs in a $227 million biobucks deal in 2024, as well as bispecific antibodies developed in-house for autoimmune disease. In addition, Ono has bagged the regional rights to Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ IgA nephropathy prospect povetacicept, which is awaiting an approval decision from the FDA.
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