China's largest pharma company, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, has signed a licensing deal to give U.S.-based startup Braveheart Bio exclusive rights to develop its innovative oral heart disease drug, HRS-1893, which treats obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
The deal will allow Braveheart to develop, manufacture and commercialize the tablets outside mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The initial payment to Hengrui will be $75 million in cash, shares, and a near-term milestone (of up to $10 million), but the deal could ultimately add up to as much as $1.01 billion in milestone payments.
Braveheart Bio was founded in 2024 by Travis Murdoch, founder of the clinical-stage biotech firm Human Immunology Biosciences. Murdoch sold Human Immunology Biosciences to Biogen in 2024 for $1.8 billion.
The agreement with Braveheart Bio is the latest of several Hengrui deals. In March 2025, Hengrui signed an exclusive license agreement giving Merck the right to development and commercialize an investigational oral small molecule Lipoprotein(a) inhibitor, HRS-5346, which is in a phase 2 clinical trial for cardiovascular disease. More recently, Hengrui inked a deal with GSK to develop up to 12 innovative medicines, including the PDE3/4 inhibitor HRS-9821 for treatment of COPD.