The exclusive license agreement will allow Sanofi to develop and commercialize the medication in China.
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Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals announced its majority owned subsidiarity Visirna Therapeutics agreed to sell the exclusive license for investigational plozasiran to Sanofi. The agreement grants Sanofi the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the treatment in greater China.

Wayne Shi, president, Sanofi Greater China, discussed the importance of the agreement, saying, “We are pleased to have concluded this agreement to enable us to advance plozasiran in Greater China where Sanofi has deep roots and a proud heritage of serving people living with a wide range of diseases. Plozasiran has shown considerable potential in studies across diverse patient populations where serious illness is caused by elevated triglycerides. With our strong presence in China’s cardiometabolic field, we now look forward to bringing it forward to address unmet need.”¹

Why Visirna?

Founded in 2022, Visirna Therapeutics is a majority-owned subsidiary of Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals based in China created to develop and commercialize four of Arrowhead’s investigational cardiometabolic candidates. This includes plozasirn, a first-in-class RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic candidate designed reduce the production of apolipoprotein C-III (APOC3) and serve as a potential treatment for familial chylomicronemia syndrome (FCS) and severe hypertriglyceridemia.

Christopher Anzalone, Ph.D., Arrowhead’s president and CEO talked about Visirna’s dedication to producing treatments for RNAi, along with the impact of the new agreement with Sanofi. The executive said, “When we founded Visirna in 2022, we believed that Greater China represented an important potential future market for multiple programs in Arrowhead’s pipeline of investigational RNAi-based candidates for cardiometabolic diseases. The team at Visirna understand the intricacies of China’s clinical, regulatory, and commercial environment and have done impressive work moving plozasiran through clinical studies and into the regulatory submission and review process. We now look forward to working with Sanofi and believe they are extremely well positioned as a global company with a strong presence in China.”¹

Visirna completed a Phase III clinical trial of investigational plozasirn in Chinese patients suffering from FCS, where plozasirn achieved its primary efficacy goal, along with reaching all its critical secondary endpoints. Succeeding the clinical trial, Virsirna submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) for plozasirn to the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in China. The application for the FCS treatment received its official acceptance back in January of this year and was granted Breakthrough Drug Designation, along with receiving Priority Review Designation by China’s NMPA.

Financial factor

Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi will pay an upfront cost of $130 million to Visirna for the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize plozasirn in China. Visirna will be eligible to receive an estimated $265 million in milestone payments upon plozasirn’s approval across mainland China. Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals is also granted eligibility to receive additional payments on royalties and net sales across China as a part of its Arrowhead-Visirna license agreement that was assigned to Sanofi.

Sources

1. Arrowhead Subsidiary Visirna Sells Rights to Hypertriglyceridemia Candidate Plozasiran in Greater China to Sanofi Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals August 1, 2025 https://arrowheadpharma.com/news-press/arrowhead-subsidiary-visirna-sells-rights-to-hypertriglyceridemia-candidate-plozasiran-in-greater-china-to-sanofi/