BridgeBio Inks Licensing Deal With BMS Over Cancer Drug

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has agreed to pay BridgeBio $90 million upfront for an exclusive license to the company’s investigational cancer drug BBP-398.

Under the agreement, BridgeBio will also be eligible to receive up to $815 million in payments for reaching development, regulatory and sales milestones.

The new licensing deal expands upon an existing collaboration. In July 2021, the companies formed a nonexclusive clinical partnership to evaluate the combination of BBP-398 and BMS’ blockbuster drug Opdivo (nivolumab) in patients with KRAS-mutated advanced solid tumors.

BBP-398 is a small-molecule inhibitor of an enzyme — SHP2 (Src homology 2 domain-containing phosphatase) — linked to oncoprotein overexpression and tumor cell transformation. It is still in the early stages of clinical development.