Chinese biotechs, flushed with funds and armed with ideas, join the race to find a coronavirus cure as pandemic ravages the world
- I-Mab Biopharma will soon start clinical trial on a drug that shows promise against Covid-19, while Cansino Biologics’ trial on a vaccine has been approved by Chinese authorities
- Song Ruilin, the head of China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association, says the policies launched in 2008 to support development of new drugs are now starting to pay off
Joan Shen Huaqiong was flying home to Shanghai from New York when a mysterious respiratory illness was spreading at an alarming rate in Wuhan, Hubei province – the original epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.
Just hours earlier, the CEO of I-Mab Biopharma and her management team were at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the trading bell to mark the listing of the first Chinese biotech company in the US in over two years. They decided that something had to be done fast to get on top of the situation. Not only did the company donate money and equipment generously, but they also delved into the company’s drug candidates for a potential cure.
“We closely followed the case reports from Wuhan and realised there was a correlation between the severity of cases and the cytokine release syndrome (CRS),” the CEO of the Shanghai-based cancer and autoimmune disease drugs developer said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “We reached out to a few hospitals in Wuhan where doctors were eager to find a good drug to treat CRS.”
CRS is an overreaction of the immune system that afflicts one in every five patients infected with the Sars-nCov-19 virus, which could cause respiratory distress, circulatory collapse, multi-organ failure and death.
I-Mab swiftly decided to move one of its eight drug candidates under human clinical trials for rheumatoid arthritis and complications resulting from one type of cancer therapy to the top of its clinical programme as a potential remedy for severe cases of the Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus.
“During the extended Lunar New Year holiday [in early February], our research and development staff overcame home-isolation and disparate time zones to swiftly work out a strategy and deployed all necessary resources to support this project,” Shen said.