KSQ Therapeutics Inc.’s chief scientific officer, Frank Stegmeier, said that the CRISPRomics technology that drew Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to the table allows, “for the first time, genome-scale functional screening [in vivo as well as in vitro] across multiple disease settings. It really takes the guessing game out of your drug target selection.”

As a virtual 39th J.P. Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference begins, typically one of the biggest events of the year, biopharma dealmaking barreled ahead with five new deals Jan. 11 that could eventually hit $1.04 billion in total.

BEIJING – Beigene Ltd. out-licensed its anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody tislelizumab to Novartis AG in a deal worth up to $2.2 billion, including $650 million up front. Novartis gains rights to develop and commercialize tislelizumab in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the EU, the U.K., Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Russia and Japan.

HONG KONG – With the sale of a group of noncore assets to a little-known Chinese company, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. took another step in a multibillion-dollar string of divestitures that is part of a plan to cut debt and focus on five key business areas. Takeda announced on Dec. 21 the sale of a portfolio of noncore prescription drugs marketed in China to Hasten Biopharmaceutic Co. Ltd. (China).

HONG KONG – Hummingbird Bioscience Pte. Ltd. is collaborating with artificial intelligence (AI) company Tempus Labs Inc. to advance HMBD-001, a differentiated anti-HER3 neutralizing antibody developed using Hummingbird's Rational Antibody Discovery platform, into clinical trials in HER3-driven cancers.