Gilead and MSD recently made 2 consecutive ADC-heavy deals

Recently, two consecutive heavyweight ADC drug deals have focused attention back on the antibody-coupled drug space: on September 13, Gilead said in a statement that it will acquire Immunomedics for $88 per share in cash, in a deal that will total about $21 billion and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. Gilead's target for the deal is, of course, Immunomedics' ace in the hole, Trodelvy, which is the world's first marketed antibody coupling targeting Trop-2. on September 14, MSD announced two collaboration agreements with Seattle Genetics in deals totaling up to $4.5 billion. Under the agreements, MSD will receive co-development and commercial rights to ladiratuzumab vedotin, an antibody-coupled drug targeting the zinc ion transporter protein LIV-1, and commercialization rights to Tukysa, another TKI drug for the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer, in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, as well as other regions outside the United States, Canada and Europe . Of these, Ladiratuzumab vedotin is currently in Phase 2 clinical stage.

According to data from a report once published by market research firm Up Market Research, the global ADC market was around $1.57 billion in 2017 and is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 25.9% between 2019 and 2025. According to the statistics, there are currently 10 ADC drugs approved for marketing worldwide. From the several ADC drugs that have been listed on the market in terms of time, there are 3 in 2019, 2 in this year, the number of drugs listed in the past 8 years time now take 2 years to reach, ADC drugs into the harvest period, the development of the field to speed up. According to EvaluatePharma, the acquisition of ADC drugs has become more and more frequent in the past two years, stimulated by the performance of ADC drugs on the market. In terms of the amount of deals reached, the single acquisition fee in this field has also increased in the past 2 years. On the one hand, more and more ADC products are in the advanced stage of development or even on the market, which will naturally increase the acquisition costs of the target; on the other hand, the ADC drug field has become more and more popular, and the bargaining power of its products has also increased. For example, MSD, Gilead and other large pharmaceutical companies are also targeting this field, acquiring related ADC drugs or even companies to improve their own layout in this field and continue to expand their oncology drug segment. It is expected that ADC drugs will play a huge potential in the anti-tumor market in the coming period.