Celgene Hands Cancer Drug Back to BeiGene, Plus $150 Million
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Chinese drugmaker BeiGene Ltd. will take back the global rights to its cancer drug tislelizumab from Celgene Corp., following the U.S. company’s blockbuster deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
Bristol-Myers and Celgene agreed to their $74 billion deal in January, and mergers of that size often result in areas of significant overlap. Tislelizumab belongs to a class of cancer drugs that target what’s called PD-1. Bristol-Myers already sells a similar drug, the blockbuster Opdivo, meaning that it likely has little use for the BeiGene partnership.