Can J&J Keep Its Edge on Cancer Biotech Deals? --- Partnership strategy has produced great pharma bargains-and left the company exposed

“Johnson & Johnson seems to have perfected the art of the biotech deal.

 

Rather than spending billions on acquisitions, it has built much of its pharmaceutical empire through partnerships that capture huge upside for bargain prices.

 

But there's a catch. A biotech partnership is a bit like an open relationship: Your partner can always fall in love with someone else.

 

Take Imbruvica, a blood-cancer blockbuster. J&J got in early, paying biotech Pharmacyclics less than $1 billion for half of the profits. But then, after the drug was approved for use, AbbVie in 2015 paid $21 billion for the whole company, forcing J&J into a corporate marriage with its rival.

 

J&J held talks last fall to buy its partner in autoimmune diseases, Protagonist Therapeutics. So far, no deal has been done, and the biotech's stock has since surged.

 

The latest test involves Legend Biotech, J&J's partner in multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. Using a technique called CAR-T therapy, researchers extract a patient's immune cells, re-engineer them to hunt cancer, and infuse them back. J&J became a leader in the field through Legend, securing rights to its drug Carvykti in 2017 for $350 million up front. That is a fraction of the $11 billion Gilead paid for Kite Pharma to get into the same space. Carvykti is now the bestselling CAR-T therapy in the world, with nearly $2 billion in 2025 sales, roughly double what the drug made the prior year.

 

The issue with traditional CAR-T therapies is that they require a highly complex, bespoke manufacturing process that can take weeks from the initial extraction of the patient's blood to the final infusion. This intense customization makes the therapy incredibly difficult to scale up, and the profit margins relatively narrow compared with standard drugs.

 

Now the field is moving to something more ambitious: in-vivo CAR-T. Instead of a weekslong extraction process, it delivers instructions directly into the body in a single infusion, more like a conventional drug. "The cost can be much lower -- therefore accessibility to these drugs will be greater," said Legend Chief Executive Ying Huang in an interview. "It's ready to go off the shelf, just like a traditional infused drug."

 

It's early days, but big drug companies have been racing to own the technology. AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Gilead have all made acquisitions in the space. Eli Lilly alone agreed to spend more than $9 billion on two in-vivo companies in the past year. J&J tried to get ahead by joining up with Kelonia, a startup that engineered a virus to selectively target T cells inside the body. Then Lilly last month agreed to pay up to $7 billion to buy Kelonia outright -- based on data from a handful of patients -- and J&J's in-vivo partner suddenly belonged to a rival. A J&J representative said in an email that in-vivo CAR-T remains one of many promising modalities in cell therapy and that the Kelonia partnership continues despite the Lilly deal.

 

Days later, J&J canceled two of its ex-vivo CAR-T programs in lymphoma that it had projected could generate $5 billion in peak sales. Its explanation: a single sentence about portfolio priorities. Analysts cited competition from Bristol-Myers and Gilead.

 

This is where Legend could come in. Legend has been building a separate in-vivo track in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and the company says it plans to present early stage results soon. Kostas Biliouris, an analyst at Oppenheimer, says investors widely expect results to be published next Tuesday ahead of a major hematology conference. David Risinger of Leerink Partners says J&J is probably still looking to broaden its in-vivo strategy. If the data is strong, deal rumors could intensify. Legend's stock has surged in recent months in anticipation of the results. Given J&J already has the relationship, it could decide to acquire Legend, Biliouris says.

 

Legend has headquarters in New Jersey but its largest shareholder is Hong Kong-listed Genscript Biotech, with a stake worth just under 50%. Acquisition rumors have surfaced before without going anywhere. And, in any case, Legend shareholders would demand a significant premium to its roughly $5 billion market cap. J&J has done plenty of multibillion-dollar acquisitions and it can definitely afford a deal well over $10 billion, but it rarely acts out of desperation.

 

A new partnership for the in-vivo program is another path. Huang says Legend can run the next trial phase independently but is "open-minded about future partnerships."

 

J&J's strategy of getting in early and paying less through partnerships has mostly worked. But it is coming up against one of its biggest tests yet.” [1]

 

1. Can J&J Keep Its Edge on Cancer Biotech Deals? --- Partnership strategy has produced great pharma bargains-and left the company exposed. Wainer, David.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 29 May 2026: B10.