The long-running dispute over rebates on sales of drugs that the pharma industry must pay to the U.K. government took a turn for the worse at the start of 2025, when it transpired that the rate would be going up from 15.3% to 22.9%. The row continued for most of the rest of the year before a truce of sorts was called in December.

Then there were three. With the administration’s Dec. 19 announcement of most-favored-nation (MFN) pricing deals with nine more biopharmas, only three of the 17 companies on the receiving end of U.S. President Donald Trump’s July 31 MFN ultimatum have yet to finalize terms with the White House – Abbvie Inc., Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Jacobio Pharmaceuticals Group Co. Ltd. is outlicensing its phase I pan-KRAS inhibitor, JAB-23E73, to Astrazeneca plc in a global deal worth up to $1.915 billion that gives Astrazeneca global rights to the compound outside of China, and the two companies will jointly develop and commercialize the asset in China.

Cytokinetics Inc. scored U.S. FDA marketing clearance Dec. 19 for Myqorzo (aficamten) 5-mg, 10-mg, 15-mg, and 20-mg tablets to improve functional capacity and symptoms in adults with symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM). Shares of the South San Francisco-based firm rose 4.6%, or $2.88, on Dec. 22 to close at $65.60.

Big pharma is increasingly shopping in China to fill its pipelines as it faces looming patent cliffs on major blockbusters coupled with growing pricing pressures on drugs. As previously reported by BioWorld, China’s out-licensing deals grew to represent 32% of global deals in the first half of 2025, up from 21% in 2024, and only 5% in 2020, Jefferies Hong Kong-based analyst Cui Cui wrote in a July 2025 report on China dealmaking.