GlycoMimetics, Inc.

Crescent Biopharma disclosed in- and out-licensing deals alongside a $185 million private placement.\n Crescent Biopharma has agreed to pay Kelun-Biotech $80 million for ex-China rights to an antibody-drug conjugate, positioning the biotech to test the asset in combination with its PD-1xVEGF bispecific.Massachusetts-based Crescent went public and raised $200 million in June as part of a reverse merger with GlycoMimetics. Crescent secured the money to advance a drug candidate that it designed to have similar characteristics to Akeso and Summit Therapeutics’ ivonescimab, the front-runner in a bispecific race that has attracted big bets from Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck & Co. and Pfizer. Lagging behind the PD-1xVEGF leaders, Crescent has strengthened its hand by licensing Kelun’s integrin beta-6 (ITGB6)-directed ADC SKB105. The deal is worth up to $345 million in development milestones, and up to $902.5 million in sales-based payments. Rights to Crescent’s PD-1xVEGF bispecific CR-001 are going in the opposite direction. Kelun will pay $20 million upfront, plus up to $30 million in development milestones, for the rights to CR-001 in greater China.  The arrangement supports the parallel generation of clinical data on CR-001 in global and Chinese trials. Crescent is aiming to start a phase 1/2 trial of CR-001 in solid tumor patients in the first quarter of 2026 and report proof-of-concept data one year later. Kelun is advancing SKB105, which Crescent calls CR-003, on a similar timeline. A phase 1/2 trial of the bispecific and ADC in combination is planned for 2027.ITGB6 is expressed in a range of solid tumors, including lung and breast cancers. The presence of ITGB6 on tumor cells has led companies including Pfizer—through its Seagen buyout—Sutro Biopharma and Pinotbio to aim ADCs at the protein.Crescent is also planning to study its bispecific in combination with another ADC, CR-002. The candidate is designed to deliver a cytotoxic topoisomerase inhibitor to PD-L1, a target that has been central to the immuno-oncology era to date. Crescent is aiming to start a phase 1/2 trial of CR-002 in the second half of 2026 and report proof-of-concept data one year later. Pfizer has a PD-L1-directed ADC in the clinic. The biotech’s R&D strategy is informed by the work of companies with more advanced PD-1xVEGF bispecifics, allowing Crescent CEO Joshua Brumm to frame CR-001’s position behind the frontrunners as a strength rather than a weakness.   “It\'s a credit to the work that\'s been done ahead of us, but it does pay some dividends to be a very fast follower to learn from these lessons,” Brumm said on a call with investors to discuss the deal. “The combination approach to this, a key part of our strategy also, is going to be very beneficial to getting those best-in-class therapies across all available indications.”Crescent will fund its studies using a $185 million private placement that it disclosed alongside the Kelun deal. Supported by investors including Forbion, Fairmount and Vestal Point Capital, Crescent has extended its cash runway into 2028. By then, data from Crescent and Kelun studies should have provided early indications of the promise of the biotech’s candidates, both as single agents and in combinations.

Crescent Biopharma made a set of sweeping moves Thursday morning, notably with its strategy of bringing its PD-1xVEGF to China. Boston-based Crescent signed a two-way deal with Kelun-Biotech, in which both companies will have access to some of each others’ assets. Crescent said that clinical trial preparation is underway and that it secured a $185 million private placement. Investors appeared to appreciate Crescent’s moves. Its share price $CBIO rose 15% in premarket trading. The news begins with Crescent out-licensing the Greater China rights to its cancer drug candidate CR-001 to Kelun-Biotech. Kelun will pay Crescent $20 million upfront and up to $30 million in milestones for the rights to the PD-1xVEGF drug candidate. The experimental medicine will enter Phase 1 in the first quarter of 2026. But that’s far behind frontrunners such as Summit Therapeutics, Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck. Among others, UK biotech Ottimo Pharma is also in the race, with expectations of getting IND clearance within the next four weeks. Meanwhile, Crescent will get access to Kelun’s integrin beta-6 (ITGB6)-directed ADC, called SKB105/CR-003, which is also slated to enter Phase 1/2 monotherapy trials in solid tumors next quarter. For ex-Greater China rights to the ADC, Crescent will pay Kelun $80 million upfront and promise up to $1.25 billion in biobucks. The two assets in this deal will first undergo monotherapy studies and then be studied in combination in the first half of 2027, Crescent said. It has other ADCs in development that it will also pair up with CR-001, including the PD-L1-directed CR-002. Also on Thursday morning, Crescent said it nabbed a $185 million private placement from Forbion, Fairmount, ADAR1 and other investors. These updates all take place six months after Crescent became a public biotech via a reverse merger with GlycoMimetics. Crescent is one of multiple spinouts from Paragon, an antibody discovery shop funded by Fairmount that has pumped out other companies like Apogee, Spyre and Jade. Crescent and Kelun’s deal follows a trend of Western biotechs going to China to pick up new medicines. Such deals have accounted for nearly one-third of drug licensing pacts this year. But the two-way deal also marks somewhat of a rarity in that Crescent is out-licensing its PD-1xVEGF to China rather than in-licensing its candidate from the country. Summit, Bristol Myers and Merck all got their investigational medicines in the hot class via Chinese biotechs Akeso , Biotheus and LaNova Medicines, respectively. For Kelun, it marks its latest $1 billion-plus ADC pact. The Chengdu-based drug developer’s main Western partner is Merck, which has forged a couple ADC alliances with the biotech. The duo’s most advanced candidate, called sac-TMT, is now headed to China’s health regulator .

A reciprocal collaboration between Crescent Biopharma and Kelun-Biotech aims to move their respective programmes — Crescent's tetravalent PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody CR-001, and Kelun's SKB105, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) — forward in tandem as potential new oncology treatments. Crescent, a Paragon Therapeutics spinout, separately disclosed a $185-million private financing on Thursday that it said would help support a spate of readouts beginning in early 2027 and extend its cash runway into 2028. Under the two-way deal, Crescent will shell out $80 million upfront and up to $1.25 billion in milestones for exclusive rights to SKB105 in the US, Europe, and other markets outside China. On the flip side, Kelun will pay $20 million as well as additional milestones of up to $30 million for exclusive rights to CR-001 in China. The partnership covers development of each drug on its own, as well as testing CR-001 and SKB105 in combination.Crescent is also set to receive tiered royalties ranging from mid-single to low-double-digits on SKB105 sales, while Kelun could earn tiered low- to mid-single-digit royalties on eventual sales of CR-001.Foundational backbone "This collaboration expands our pipeline with the addition of SKB105, furthers our strategy of advancing multiple modalities across our portfolio, and accelerates our efforts to deliver synergistic combinations with CR-001, which has the potential to be a foundational backbone therapy," said Joshua Brumm, chief executive at Crescent, which completed a reverse merger with GlycoMimetics over the summer and bagged $200 million in a private financing. Crescent says CR-001 has been "intentionally designed to exhibit the cooperative pharmacology" of Akeso and Summit Therapeutics' ivonescimab, a PD-1/VEGF hopeful that outperformed Merck & Co.'s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in a Phase III lung cancer trial (see – Vital Signs: What to watch ahead of Summit's big test for its Keytruda killer and KOL Views Q&A: Is HARMONi-2's success in 1L NSCLC too good to be true?). By blocking PD-1 to reactivate T-cell responses and inhibiting VEGF to normalise vasculature at the tumour site, Crescent believes CR-001 can both improve immune cell infiltration and boost the effectiveness of combination partners, including ADCs like SKB105 and CR-002, a PD-L1–targeting ADC it is developing that delivers a topoisomerase 1 inhibitor payload. The company plans to start a Phase I/II trial of CR-001 in multiple solid tumours, including lung, gastrointestinal and gynecological cancers, in the first quarter of 2026, with proof-of-concept data expected about a year after that. Meanwhile, SKB105 (which will now also be codenamed CR-003) targets integrin beta-6, a molecule minimally expressed in healthy tissues, but elevated in several solid tumours, allowing for selective delivery of its topoisomerase payload. Kelun plans to launch a Phase I//II trial of SKB105 in China in early 2026, with proof-of-concept data expected by the first quarter of 2027, followed by a CR-001/SKB105 combination study in the first half of 2027 and initial results by the end of that year.