Proof of concept that China can innovate
Collaborations with big pharma, healthy venture investments and a robust pipeline make Shanghai-based Hutchison MediPharma a blueprint for Asian bioventures. Dr Samantha Du discusses with Rebecca Debens deals, drug development and doing business in China.
When the Chinese bioventure Hutchison MediPharma formed in 2002 as a division of Hutchison China MediTech, the company's initial focus was research into "botanical opportunities". Nine years later, it boasts collaborative partnerships with Merck & Co, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson, has a lead inflammatory bowel disease candidate entering Phase III, and is confidently asserting its goal of becoming a fully-integrated company – no mean feat in a market swelling with domestic start-ups vying for success.
Those big pharma partnerships underline the company's long-term plan to work with big names from the West, while it continues to expand its capabilities to build a commercial organisation, especially in China. Hutchison MediPharma's current partnerships focus on targets in oncology and immunology, and continue to progress from their first inceptions five years ago, CEO Dr Samantha Du confirms. She cites the company's development focus on products for the "global market" and its "proven track record of delivery" as factors helping to lure its moneyed partners.
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Doing the lion's work in Asian drug development
Deprioritised assets from mid-sized and large pharmaceutical companies in North America and Europe have become a promising source of compounds for Aslan Pharmaceuticals, a Singaporean firm with a unique business model, Dr Carl Firth tells Ian Haydock.
Aslan is best known as the lion character in the film franchise based on CS Lewis's 'Chronicles of Narnia'. It also explains why Singapore-based Aslan Pharmaceuticals has a stylised lion as its logo, the word being the Turkish noun for the supposed king of beasts.
"We also thought it was appropriate as Singapore is the merlion city," (the merlion being a mythical creature with a lion's head and the body of a fish and the famous symbol of the island state) CEO Dr Carl Firth told Scrip Asia 100 during a visit to Tokyo. "The Aslan virtual business model is really based on leveraging the emerging capabilities of Asia for early-stage drug development," he continued. The strategic aim is to search out and in-license late preclinical or early clinical compounds and then take them through Phase I/II trials to proof of concept using external partners such as CROs before licensing them back out.
This may be either to the original licensor through a buy-back option or to a third party. All work in between is carried out in Asia but with an eye on global late-stage development and commercialisation. Not forgetting of course that Asia is a large and fast-growing pharma market in its own right.
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TeloVac tailwind helps KAEL-GemVax chart a course to market
Being part of a large listed group relieves KAEL-GemVax from the constant fundraising headaches typical of its peers, writes Ian Haydock.
With a promising peptide vaccine moving smoothly through the largest clinical trial for pancreatic cancer in the world, and the possibility of an IPO later this year, KAEL-GemVax would appear to have good reasons to be optimistic. The TeloVac Phase III study with the GV1001 vaccine, the South Korean firm's lead development project, is on track to reach its recruitment goal of around 1,100 patients, no mean achievement in a relatively rare malignancy where the medical need remains high.
"The trial is progressing really well and we actually expect to complete enrolment in July or August, which will be around six months ahead of our original schedule," business development vice-president Dr Michelle Kim told Scrip Asia 100 during a trip to Japan earlier this year.
KAEL-GemVax originally acquired all rights to GV1001 as part of the 2008 purchase by its parent KAEL (a diversified materials group) of GemVax, a Norwegian subsidiary of Denmark's Pharmexa. The therapy is part of a select group, as there are currently only around 10 cancer vaccines in Phase III trials worldwide, and the TeloVac study has drawn much attention from specialists.
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