Fresenius doubles down on biosimilars with big WuXi alliance
German healthcare group Fresenius is already a player in the biosimilars market, and has ramped up its position in the category via a major new deal with China's WuXi Biologics.
While financial terms have not been disclosed, the wide-ranging deal covers up to 37 identified biosimilar candidates over the next decade, which collectively address more than €370 billion in originator brand sales, according to Fresenius.
The company said it has the potential to expand its biosimilar pipeline from 29 to 66 candidates, and will be instrumental in its efforts to power growth in the 2030s.
The WuXi agreement gives Fresenius "full strategic flexibility" to choose which biosimilar candidates to develop and gives the German group full commercialisation rights to the products covered by the agreement. A statement on the deal reveals that it spans 13 therapeutic areas and includes multiple modalities, including monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and fusion proteins.
The two front-running candidates are biosimilars of Roche's Polivy (polatuzumab vedotin), an ADC for the treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma that made around $1.7 billion in global sales last year, and Amgen's $1.9 billion blockbuster Tepezza (teprotumumab), a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of thyroid eye disease.
The new alliance comes after Fresenius has faced operational and financial volatility in the last few years, mainly affecting its dialysis division, Fresenius Medical Care (FMC), which was hit hard during the pandemic, but has since struggled to recover.
The Fresenius Kabi pharma unit and private hospital arm Fresenius Helios have been bright spots for the company under chief executive Michael Sen, who was hired to turn the group around in 2022 and had his contract extended for another five years in February.
Sen has made no secret of his plan to build the pharma side of the business, and the WuXi deal ties firmly into that strategy, building on its investment in biosimilars and biomanufacturing with the acquisition of mAbxience. Fresenius took an initial stake in mAbxience in 2022, and completed the takeover in a €750 million deal in October.
Further details of the WuXi alliance are expected to be available in Fresenius' third-quarter results presentation, which is due to take place on Wednesday 4th November.
"We are doubling down on our Biopharma business," said Sen. "With this agreement we are gaining access to development capabilities in a market where speed and scale are of the essence."
He added that the deal provides a "disciplined, scalable way to potentially triple our portfolio while retaining economic ownership, strategic control, and the flexibility to allocate capital to the most compelling opportunities."
