Swiss biotech Windward Bio is picking up a second drug candidate from a China biotech this year, seeking to bring multiple medicines to market for respiratory and dermatology conditions.
Windward is paying up to $700 million to gain access to a TSLP and IL-13 bispecific antibody from Qyuns Therapeutics. The partners declined to disclose the upfront size of the deal but said Qyuns gets an equity stake in Windward. Qyuns’ other bispecific antibody pact this year
with Roche
came with $70 million upfront.
Taizhou-based Qyuns is in Phase 1 testing with the asset at the heart of Monday’s
deal
, which marked the third China-to-Europe drug licensing transaction of the day.
AstraZeneca
and
Ipsen
also took part in the growing trend.
Windward expects to take Qyuns’ injectable, named QX027N/WIN027, into a Phase 1b in patients with respiratory and dermatology conditions once it has collected the Phase 1 data, CEO Luca Santerelli told
Endpoints News
on Monday. The biotech is betting that WIN027 has potential across asthma, COPD and atopic dermatitis, and it aims to get to quarterly or twice-yearly dosing with the long-acting medicine.
“We scoped the whole landscape for potential best-in-disease, best-in-class products that we could get our hands on, and we identified this Qyuns molecule as such a possibility,” Santarelli said. “We came across this molecule maybe 10 months ago, and we worked very hard to get it in.”
The agreement marks a quick progression for Windward, which launched with
$200 million in January
and rights to a TSLP antibody from Kelun and its partner Harbour BioMed. Since then, Windward has brought the asset from that first deal into a
Phase 2
trial in asthma patients. The drug, dubbed WIN378, will also be tested in patients with COPD next year, Santarelli said.
Windward plans to file WIN378 for regulatory approval in asthma by 2031 and COPD by 2032, if all goes to plan, the CEO said. They’ll also look for a commercialization partner for that treatment.
Santarelli declined to disclose Windward’s runway but said the 30-employee startup doesn’t need a capital injection at the moment. The biotech expects eight clinical readouts over the next two and a half years, and those data drops can drum up investor intrigue for future financings, he said. Its financial backers include OrbiMed, Novo Holdings and Qiming.
The Windward executive team comprises the former C-suite of VectivBio. Santarelli sold that gastrointestinal biotech to Ironwood Pharmaceuticals for
$1 billion
in 2023. Ironwood had expected to get FDA approval for the main drug from that acquisition, but ran into a
regulatory setback
in April and now
anticipates
starting a confirmatory trial next year.
Windward will have to compete with some large pharmaceutical companies and small biotechs in the TSLP and TSLPxIL-13 bispecific landscape.
Amgen and AstraZeneca market a monthly TSLP biologic called Tezspire. Tezspire sales jumped 40% year over year to $377 million in the third quarter, Amgen
said
last month. Meanwhile, GSK paid $1 billion upfront for
Aiolos Bio
in January 2024. Generate:Biomedicines is slated to
enter Phase 3
and Upstream Bio has also presented
mid-stage data
.
Multiple drugmakers are also attempting to take a TSLPx-IL-13 bispecific onto the market. Sanofi’s lunsekimig is in
Phase 3
in COPD, and Johnson & Johnson snagged an asset in this area as part of its $850 million
Proteologix acquisition
in 2024.
Santarelli said blocking TSLP should have the “biggest effect size” for respiratory diseases. By adding IL-13, “it adds certain aspects to the respiratory biology.” The target is thought to contribute to the formation of mucus plaque in the lungs of COPD and asthma patients, he added.
Beyond the two China-derived assets, Windward is also working on an internally discovered bispecific that goes after less-validated targets, Santarelli said.
“We’re committed to continue to grow the company,” the CEO said. “We’re not stopping at three molecules.”