On 19 October, Roche and the Chinese drugmaker Hansoh Pharma announced a second collaboration on antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, a class of targeted cancer medicines. Roche will pay $400 million upfront, and Hansoh is eligible for more than $15 billion in further milestone payments if the programmes succeed.
It is Roche's seventh deal with a Chinese company this year, and a sign of where Western drug companies now look when they want new cancer medicines.
What Roche is getting
The agreement covers two ADC programmes that Hansoh already had in preclinical development, plus further candidates that Hansoh will build against cancer targets chosen by Roche. The new candidates will be made using Hansoh's own ADC technology platform. The targets have not been named publicly.
Hansoh leads development through global phase Ia trials, the first stage of testing in people. Roche then takes over development worldwide, outside mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, where Hansoh keeps its rights. Hansoh can also choose up to two programmes to help develop outside those territories, in return for a share of the upside from United States sales.
How the money is structured
Hansoh receives $400 million upfront and a further $110 million on the first anniversary of the agreement. On top of that come milestone payments of more than $15 billion, tied to development progress, regulatory approvals and sales, along with royalties on future sales. Milestones are paid only if a drug reaches each stage, so the headline total is a ceiling and not a guarantee. Royalty rates have not been disclosed.
What an antibody-drug conjugate is
An ADC joins three parts. An antibody finds a protein found on the surface of cancer cells. A chemical linker holds a potent anti-cancer drug to the antibody. Once the antibody attaches to a tumour cell, the drug is released inside it. The aim is to deliver a strong dose to the tumour while sparing more healthy tissue than standard chemotherapy.
Roche already sells two ADCs, Kadcyla and Polivy. Boris Zaïtra, Roche's head of corporate business development, called the exploration of next generation ADCs "one of the most compelling frontiers in oncology today."
A second deal in a year
The two companies first worked together in October 2025, when Roche paid $80 million upfront for HS-20110, an ADC aimed at CDH17 and B7-H3, proteins found on colorectal and other solid tumours. That agreement was worth up to $1.45 billion in total. The new deal is more than ten times larger.
Hansoh is also no stranger to Western partners. In 2023 it licensed two cancer ADC candidates to GSK in agreements valued at $1.7 billion and $1.5 billion.
Roche's seventh Chinese deal this year
The Hansoh agreement is Roche's seventh deal with a Chinese company in 2026. Others include a $1.16 billion agreement with Rona Therapeutics on an RNA interference obesity drug, and a protein degrader alliance with Defand Therapeutics worth up to $1 billion.
Roche is not alone. In August, Genentech, Roche's US arm, paid DualityBio $45 million upfront for ADCs against targets of its own choosing, and in January AstraZeneca paid CSPC Pharmaceutical $1.2 billion upfront in a separate agreement. Chinese companies are increasingly the source of early stage cancer drugs that large Western groups then take through late stage trials and onto the market.
What to watch
Everything in this agreement is early. The programmes are preclinical, and most drugs at this stage never reach patients. The first real test will be the phase Ia trials Hansoh runs, followed by Roche's decisions about which candidates to carry forward.
For Hansoh, the deal brings in cash and a reputation as a platform company that Western partners return to. For Western readers, it is one more example of a Chinese company supplying the kind of medicine that the world's largest drugmakers want to own.