Harbour BioMed will work alongside BMS to progress and expedite the programmes aimed at the discovery of the antibodies.
Harbour BioMed, in exchange, is eligible to obtain payments totalling $90m, with potential development and commercial milestone payments of up to $1.035bn.
It may also receive tiered royalties if BMS decides to proceed with all potential programmes.
Harbour BioMed is focused on new antibody therapeutic discovery and development in the fields of oncology and immunology.
It is expanding its pipeline through internal research and development, partnerships in joint discovery and development, and targeted acquisitions.
Harbour BioMed chairman, founder and CEO Jingsong Wang stated: “We are delighted to collaborate with BMS to advance next-generation multi-specific antibody discovery and development.
“This collaboration leverages our Harbour Mice fully human antibody technology platform, which facilitates the efficient discovery and development of innovative biologics with enhanced therapeutic potential. Furthermore, the collaboration offers the possibility to utilise our established development capabilities to accelerate programmes by conducting early clinical trials in China.
“By uniting the strengths of our platform with BMS’s expertise in drug discovery and development, we look forward to progressing these programmes and delivering transformative therapies to patients worldwide.”
The Harbour Mice antibody technology platform is designed to generate fully human monoclonal antibodies in conventional two heavy and two light chain (H2L2) as well as the heavy chain-only (HCAb) formats.