InnoCare Pharma and Zenas BioPharma Announce License Agreement
Palo Alto – October 8, 2025 – Cooley advised InnoCare Pharma, a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing and commercializing first-in-class and best-in-class drugs for the treatment of cancers and autoimmune diseases with unmet medical needs in China and worldwide, on its transformational license agreement with Zenas BioPharma, granting Zenas global development and commercialization rights to orelabrutinib for multiple sclerosis and across all therapeutic areas other than oncology.
Under the license agreement, Zenas also secured rights to a novel, oral IL-17AA/AF inhibitor and an oral, brain-penetrant tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitor. Zenas will pay InnoCare upfront and near-term milestone payments of up to $100 million in cash, including milestone achievements expected in 2026, and up to 7,000,000 shares of Zenas common stock, including shares issuable upon a milestone expected to be achieved in early 2026. The total of the upfront payment, near-term milestone and potential development and regulatory milestone payments, along with potential commercial sales achievement milestone payments for all three programs, exceeds $2 billion.
Lawyers Lila Hope and Freddy Yip led the Cooley team advising InnoCare.
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