The Japan­ese drug­mak­er Sh­iono­gi an­nounced Mon­day that it will be tak­ing own­er­ship of one of the on­ly ap­proved ALS drugs in a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar deal, with im­pli­ca­tions for its broad­er am­bi­tions in rare dis­ease.

The com­pa­ny will pay $2.5 bil­lion to ac­quire both the oral and IV for­mu­la­tions of Rad­i­ca­va, al­so known as edar­avone, from Bain Cap­i­tal-owned Tan­abe Phar­ma. As part of the deal, Tan­abe will spin out a new­co for all Rad­i­ca­va op­er­a­tions, which will op­er­ate as a sub­sidiary of Sh­iono­gi.

For Sh­iono­gi, the deal rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in the rare dis­ease space. The com­pa­ny is re­search­ing drugs for rare ge­net­ic dis­or­ders, most of which are in ear­ly- or mid-stage test­ing. But it al­so has za­tolmi­last, a PDE4D in­hibitor, that is in Phase 3 for the in­her­it­ed de­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der known as Frag­ile X syn­drome.

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.

Ipsen ex­tend­ed its 18-month deal­mak­ing streak, lin­ing up an an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate from Shang­hai-based Sim­cere Za­im­ing.

Paris-based Ipsen will pay $45 mil­lion up­front for ac­cess to an an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate out­side of Greater Chi­na, ac­cord­ing to a reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ing. The to­tal could bal­loon to $1.06 bil­lion if all mile­stones, in­clud­ing com­mer­cial ones, are met.

The move fol­lows an­oth­er Chi­na-to-Eu­rope deal ear­li­er Mon­day from As­traZeneca and Ja­co­bio Phar­ma. Chi­na-to-West pacts have dom­i­nat­ed in bio­phar­ma this year, mak­ing up for more than one-third of li­cens­ing trans­ac­tions.

The French com­pa­ny's deal spree has in­clud­ed buy­ing im­munother­a­py start­up Im­Check and forg­ing al­liances with Bio­munex, Day One, Fore­seen Biotech­nol­o­gy and Maren­go Ther­a­peu­tics. Mean­while, it dropped an ADC from Sutro. Sim­cere, found­ed in 2023, has al­ready done a T cell en­gager deal with Ab­b­Vie and an ADC pact with NextCure this year.