Bristol-Myers and Ono Pharma enter Asia oncology accord

US pharma major Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and Japan’s Ono Pharmaceutical (TYO: 4528) have signed a strategic collaboration to jointly develop and commercialize multiple immunotherapies as single agents and combination regimens to help address the unmet medical needs of patients with cancer in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

As part of the agreement, B-MS and Ono will jointly develop and commercialize Opdivo (nivolumab) and Yervoy (ipilimumab) across a broad range of tumor types. Financial terms of the accord were not disclosed.

Opdivo is a PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor approved in Japan for the treatment of patients with unresectable melanoma, making it the first PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor to receive regulatory approval anywhere in the world, and is being developed in multiple tumor types in more than 35 clinical trials. Yervoy, a CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitor, is approved in Taiwan for the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma who have received prior therapy, and is in late-stage development as a potential treatment option for melanoma, small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in Japan.