Hengrui Pharmaceuticals has been busy this year, signing a nearly $2 billion cardio contract with Merck in March and a 12-asset agreement with GSK in July worth up to $12 billion.
China’s Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals has found another U.S. partnership, this time putting it in line for potentially more than $1 billion in total payments.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hengrui will receive $65 million upfront from Delaware-based startup Braveheart Bio, plus up to $10 million in additional near-term payments once the transfer of certain technologies has been completed. Hengrui will also be eliglble for up to $1.013 billion in clinical and sales-related milestones, plus royalties on worldwide sales outside of mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
The centerpiece of Friday’s transaction is Hengrui’s selective myosin blocker HRS-1893, according to a regulatory filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The asset works by tamping down on the excessive contraction of heart muscles, in turn preventing hypertrophy in the left ventricle and improving heart muscle relaxation.
HRS-1893 is currently in late-stage development for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM). Braveheart and Hengrui will establish a joint steering committee—with each company nominating at most five members each—to oversee the global development and commercialization of the asset.
With Friday’s agreement, Hengrui and Braveheart will take on Cytokinetics, which earlier this week achieved “potentially best-in-class” efficacy for its own cardiac myosin inhibitor aficamten, according to analysts at Truist Securities. Aficamten is also being developed for oHCM. An application is undergoing FDA review with a target action date of Sept. 26.
Braveheart represents Hengrui’s third major partnership this year. In March, the company received $200 million upfront from Merck for its investigational small-molecule lipoprotein(a) blocker HRS-5346. Under this agreement, Hengrui could also receive up to $1.77 billion in developmental, regulatory and commercial milestones, and royalties on top of those.
Then, in July, Hengrui struck gold when it entered into a sprawling, 12-target pact with GSK. Leading this partnership is HRS-9821, a potentially best-in-class PDE3/4 inhibitor being tested for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. GSK paid $500 million upfront for this asset and for the opportunity to work on 11 more molecules with Hengrui. Future payments could reach up to $12 billion if all programs are optioned and all milestones are hit.
Not much is known about Hengrui’s latest partner Braveheart. According to the regulatory filing on Friday, the startup was founded in 2024 and is led by Travis Murdoch, who was previously the CEO of HI-Bio before it was acquired by Biogen in May 2024 for $1.8 billion.
