Biohaven said Thursday it has licensed its MoDE pan-IgG degrader portfolio to Ono Pharmaceutical in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the ASEAN region, receiving $80 million upfront plus a $20 million milestone expected within the next year and royalties of about 20 percent on net sales in the territory. Biohaven keeps all rights outside the licensed region, including the US, Europe and China.
The lead asset is BHV-1300, an investigational small-molecule IgG degrader currently in a Phase 3 trial in Graves’ disease. Biohaven reported in January that a Graves’ patient treated with the degrader had shown complete suppression of disease-causing TSH receptor-stimulating antibodies. The mechanism selectively targets IgG1, IgG2 and IgG4 while sparing IgG3, preserving a slice of immune protection, and is designed for self-administration via autoinjector. The deal also covers two next-generation follow-on degraders, BHV-1310 and BHV-1320, all originating from Yale’s Spiegel Lab.
The transaction is one of three drug-discovery pillars Biohaven kept after it stripped back its R&D in March, and the company described it as the first regional collaboration for an extracellular protein degrader. For Ono, which built its reputation in immuno-oncology with Opdivo, the deal fills a late-stage immunology pipeline gap. The competitive context is crowded: IgG-lowering approaches from argenx and Johnson and Johnson are already marketed or in late testing, so Biohaven’s degraders will need the Phase 3 Graves’ data to argue for best-in-class status rather than first-mover share.