Mature biopharma deals are stealing all the headlines, but Bristol Myers Squibb’s Robert Plenge says the company’s deals with insitro, Orbital and more are building the future.
You may think that Big Pharma is stuck on late stage dealmaking and more focused on safe R&D than big bets. But at Bristol Myers Squibb, Chief Research Officer Robert Plenge insists that innovation is happening—you just have to know where to look.
“It’s happening now. We’re doing it now,” Plenge told BioSpace on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, waving his arms for emphasis. “It’s the late stage [deals] that get all the attention, but it doesn’t mean that the earlier stuff isn’t happening.”
BMS is entering a “data-rich period,” CEO Chris Boerner told the J.P. Morgan crowd earlier in the day. This could lead to as many as 10 new medicines with over 30 “meaningful launch periods” by 2030.
“Taken together, what emerges is a younger and more diversified portfolio that will provide an impressive foundation for sustained growth leading into 2030 and beyond,” Boerner said.
Late stage deals obviously have a higher dollar value, which immediately turns heads, Plenge said. These de-risked assets have become the foundation for pharma deals this past year as companies seek to patch specific holes ahead of key patent losses. That has left earlier-stage and more experimental biotechs reeling.
But a company the size of BMS has to have all its bases covered—and BMS has done just that with some smaller deals that may not have seemed like big ticket events.
Plenge pointed to BMS’s work with AI-drug discovery biotech insitro as an example of the kind of early stage innovation that is setting the stage for tomorrow’s blockbusters.
The companies linked up over five years ago to leverage the AI-biotech’s platform to find new therapies for ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The deal originally offered insitro $50 million upfront and $20 million in milestones. But in October 2025, BMS doubled down, offering $20 million upfront to extend the partnership and adding $2 billion in potential milestones and royalties.
BMS is specifically interested in an ALS target that was discovered through the pact, opting in with the revision of the agreement.
Another big bet for future science, according to Plenge, is BMS’s deal with Harbour BioMed, a Chinese biotech that is developing bispecific antibodies through its Harbour Mice platform. BMS and Harbour agreed to work together on developing new multispecific antibodies for $90 million upfront and $1.035 billion possible down the line in milestones and other payments.
Plenge also pointed to the Karuna Therapeutics deal of 2023; the star right now is Cobenfy, but the biotech also came with an earlier pipeline that could bring on the next wave of muscarinic therapies for neuro disorders.
“Even though the attention is Cobenfy, there’s insight into these biological pathways, specifically muscarinic receptor biology, that we’re continuing to prosecute as well,” Plenge explained. While he is confident in Cobenfy’s future, Plenge said there may be ways that BMS can improve on the drug with future programs.
“We don’t know if we’ll necessarily need those improvements, but because we believe that we’re leaders in muscarinic biology, we want to make sure that we position ourselves should we need these types of next gen molecules,” he added.
Finally, Plenge noted the acquisition of Orbital Therapeutics, which boosted BMS’s cell therapy pipeline, particularly for in vivo CAR T.
“There’ll be things over the course of the year that may not get the attention, but they’re also going to be kind of discovery platforms, or early-stage deals,” Plenge said.
As for where BMS may strike, Plenge was tight lipped but pointed back to the company’s fundamentals: oncology, beyond hematology and immunology and specifically immune reset; cardiovascular and neuropsych and neurodegeneration.
After the Harbour deal, Plenge said BMS is still on the hunt in China. The company has established a commercial and developmental footprint there to find the next partnership, he said.
“We will look for innovation wherever it emerges. And right now, China is a great place to do that,” he said.
