(Yicai) Sept. 20 -- BeiGene’s shares sank after the Chinese biomedical firm and Swiss drugmaker Novartis announced the termination of an almost three-year-old global licensing deal involving BeiGene’s cancer treatment tislelizumab.

BeiGene [HKG: 6160] finished down 4.7 percent at HKD120 (USD15.34) a share in Hong Kong today, after slumping by as much as 6 percent at one point, while its Shanghai-listed stock [SHA: 688235] fell 4.1 percent to close at CNY138.90 (USD19.10). In New York yesterday, BeiGene [NASDAQ: BGNE] ended little changed at USD208.86.

BeiGene will regain the overseas rights to develop, make, and commercialize the PD-1 immunotherapy cancer drug, which has won approval for use in Europe, the Beijing-based company said yesterday. No royalty payments are due to Novartis and BeiGene will keep Novartis’ USD650 million down payment.

The deal’s end was the result of changes in Novartis’ global strategy, BeiGene President Wu Xiaobin told Yicai late yesterday, without elaborating. The partnership on tislelizumab was struck in January 2021.

It is the second deal the pair have wound up in the last two months. In July, they ended an agreement on option rights for BeiGene's experimental cancer drug ociperlimab, citing strategic and financial considerations.

BeiGene will now control tislelizumab’s overseas sales, boosting the firm’s performance, and can advance development of related drugs more efficiently, said Senior Vice President Wang Lai. BeiGene may link arms with other companies on the drug's global sales, he added.

The tislelizumab injection was the first anti-PD-1 therapy developed by a Chinese biotech firm approved for sales overseas and marketing approval is being sought for it in the United States. Greenlit by Chinese regulators in December 2019, the drug had sales of CNY2.9 billion (USD397.3 million) last year.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor