Baiji Shenzhou cooperates with Merck xuelanuo to develop new anticancer drugs

Merck has signed an agreement with Beijing based biotech company beigene to jointly develop an experimental cancer drug This latest sign shows that China's fledgling life science field is developing rapidly The contract for a drug called Baiji shenzhou-290 is Merck's second agreement with Baiji Shenzhou this year It has expanded the scope of cooperation between the two sides, covering the two most advanced cancer drugs developed by the Chinese enterprise The agreement comes at a time when multinational pharmaceutical companies are increasingly connected with fledgling Chinese drug developers, a trend influenced by the Chinese government's massive investment in drug research and development and the return of many experienced pharmaceutical scientists from the United States to China Hutchison medipharma, headquartered in Shanghai, signed a cooperation agreement with Eli Lilly this summer to jointly develop an experimental cancer drug China has a large market space in modern medicine and traditional medicine, and is becoming more and more important in the global production and sales of active pharmaceutical ingredients APIs are raw materials for drug production But so far, China has developed few innovative drugs for the global market Artemisinin is extracted from the plant of Artemisia annua It was initially researched and developed by the researchers of the military system The drug has been commercialized by Novartis to treat malaria At present, several other pharmaceutical companies are also producing the drug German pharmaceutical company Merck xuelanuo announced in Beijing on the 13th that it would acquire the development right of beigene-290, a new anticancer drug of Baiji Shenzhou (Beijing) Biotechnology Co., Ltd., in the market outside China For this purpose, the latter can gain up to EUR 170 million Prior to this, Merck has acquired the overseas market development right of beigene-283, another anti-cancer drug in Baji Industry insiders believe that the high price of international leading pharmaceutical companies' acquisition of new drugs independently researched and developed by China not only reflects the significant improvement of China's new drug research and development capacity, and increasingly recognized by the international community, but also highlights some bottleneck constraints that Chinese pharmaceutical companies still face in exploring overseas markets Beigene-290 and beigene-283 are targeted anticancer agents independently developed by Baiji Shenzhou They are about to enter clinical research and have a bright commercial prospect According to the agreement, baiji is responsible for the development and commercialization of the above-mentioned drugs in China, while Merck xuelanuo is responsible for the rest of the world Merck xuelanuo is a biopharmaceutical enterprise that provides a variety of prescription drugs to 150 countries and regions around the world Susan Herbert, Merck's global business development and strategy executive, said the signing of the agreement will help the two sides work together to provide innovative anti-cancer drugs for patients around the world Lei Qiang, chief executive of Baiji Shenzhou, also believes that the new drugs they independently developed are valued by Merck and bought the development right outside China, which fully proves the strength of Chinese enterprises in new drug research and development But he has to admit that the development and commercialization of innovative drugs in the world is impossible for Baiji to accomplish alone "Investment is increasing, technology is improving, and a large number of talents are returning to China In recent years, China's new drug research and development capacity has improved rapidly, with more and more achievements, which can be described as Xinxin Xiangrong From generic drugs to generic drugs, and then to innovative drugs, China's new drug research and development is about to enter the world's advanced ranks " Wang Xiaodong, director of the Beijing Institute of life sciences, said However, in the face of rare development opportunities, some bottleneck constraints are more and more obvious Wang Xiaodong pointed out that at present, the long time for approval of new drugs in China, the lack of clinical research experience, the lack of research standards in line with the international standards, and the fierce competition among multinational enterprises, all of these have plagued China's independent research and development of new drugs to go abroad and occupy the overseas market.