Cipla signed a licensing deal with Qilu Pharmaceutical to commercialize a Keytruda biosimilar in the United States, while Spire Healthcare agreed to a 1.03 billion pound take-private buyout. Meanwhile, Novartis suffered a clinical setback as its cardiovascular drug pelacarsen failed a Phase 3 trial. In other developments, ADARx Pharmaceuticals filed for an initial public offering, and Yuhan Corporation expanded its commercial partnership with Novartis Korea.
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Cipla Partners With Qilu Pharmaceutical on Keytruda Biosimilar in US
Out-licensing late-stage commercial rights allows Qilu to fund complex biosimilar manufacturing while giving Cipla an immediate pipeline pipeline fix for its shrinking North American generic portfolio.
Cipla subsidiary Invagen Pharmaceuticals entered an exclusive licensing and supply partnership with Qilu Pharmaceutical for QL2107, a proposed to Merck and Company's Keytruda in the United States. Under the agreement, Qilu handles development, regulatory registration, and product supply, while Cipla USA manages commercialization across the market. The collaboration targets a reference product that generated approximately $31.7 billion in worldwide sales during 2025. QL2107 is currently in development. The partnership comes as Cipla's North American fell about 21% due to declining contributions from older and supply disruptions. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Merck 2025 Keytruda and Total Sales ($B)
Keytruda generated close to half of Merck's total 2025 sales.
Yuhan Corporation Partners With Novartis to Distribute Rapsido in South Korea
Dividing commercial channels between general hospitals and local clinics lets a domestic pharma partner maximize primary-care reach while the foreign originator retains high-margin institutional relationships.
Yuhan Corporation partnered with Novartis Korea on September 7 to distribute, sell, and promote the chronic spontaneous urticaria treatment Rapsido in South Korea. Under the agreement, Yuhan will manage domestic distribution and target clinics, while Novartis Korea will handle promotions in general hospitals. Rapsido is an oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor that received domestic approval in April for adult patients unresponsive to H1 antihistamines. The drug targets mast cell activation to reduce inflammatory mediators like histamine, backed by global trials showing sustained symptom improvement up to 52 weeks. Separately, Yuhan secured a 130 billion won active pharmaceutical ingredient supply contract on September 1, bringing its total confirmed supply contracts for the year to approximately 397 billion won across three deals.
Yuhan 2026 API Contract Values (Billion Won)
Total confirmed supply contracts reached approximately 397 billion won across three deals.
Novartis Experimental Cardiovascular Drug Fails Pivotal Study
Pelacarsen's failure decouples Lp(a) reduction from actual risk reduction, invalidating the key biomarker hypothesis underpinning rival cardiovascular pipelines at Amgen and Eli Lilly.
Novartis announced Friday that its experimental cardiovascular drug pelacarsen failed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attacks, or strokes compared to a placebo in the HORIZON trial, according to statnews.com. The drug was designed to target and lower levels of Lp(a), a lipid and protein combination that raises the likelihood of severe heart problems when present in elevated concentrations. This setback is a major blow to the Swiss drugmaker and to broader pharmaceutical efforts to treat that specific heart disease risk factor. Competitors like Amgen and Eli Lilly are also developing therapies to lower Lp(a) levels.
Spire Healthcare Agrees to £1 Billion Takeover by Hedge Fund
Rising payroll taxes and statutory wage mandates on labor-intensive private hospital operators force capital-intensive clinical investments off public exchanges to escape quarterly earnings scrutiny.
theguardian.com reports that Spire Healthcare has agreed to a £1.03bn takeover by an investor group led by Toscafund Management. The 250p-a-share offer brings Britain's biggest private hospital operator under the control of a firm founded by Martin Hughes. Spire operates 38 private hospitals and over 60 clinics, serving 1.36 million patients in 2025. The company pursued a sale following a strategic review launched last September after talks with firms Bridgepoint and Triton fell through in March. Chair designate Debbie White noted that rising costs including national insurance contributions and a higher minimum wage squeezed the business before the deal. As a private entity, the hospital group will escape public market to invest in new technology and patient care. Toscafund was already the second-biggest shareholder in Spire before orchestrating the buyout.
ADARx Targets IPO With Three Clinical-Stage Drug Candidates
Big pharma licensing partnerships and crossover capital are now directly de-risking late-stage RNA interference pipelines prior to entering the public equity markets.
ADARx Pharmaceuticals filed for an initial public offering to fund late-stage for its pipeline of small interfering RNA therapies. The San Diego-based biotech entered 2026 with $427.3 million in cash, bolstered by a $335 million upfront partnership with AbbVie last year and a $200 million series C round in 2023. Proceeds from the listing will primarily advance three clinical-stage , including phase 2 studies for the complement-mediated disease treatment agazisiran and ongoing development for the hereditary angioedema drug onvuzosiran. The will also support early-stage work on the factor XI-targeted asset ADX-626 and preclinical candidates targeting obesity and Alzheimer-s disease. Led by CEO Zhen Li, the company joins a wave of biotechs testing the public markets in 2026.
Buyout activity and biosimilar expansion contrast sharply with clinical trial failures in late-stage drug pipelines. Investors will closely monitor whether upcoming biopharma IPOs can maintain momentum despite high-profile Phase 3 pipeline disappointments.
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