Focus On Asia

Plus transactions involving Nissan Chemical/Sanwa Kagaku, Memel/Therabest, Chugai/Alnylam, Takeda/Kumquat, Nxera/Handok, 3SBio/CStone and deals in brief.

Aiming to help create China’s first original treatment for under-researched rare diseases, the Hope for Rare Foundation is racing against a funding crunch to support translational research in China, its co-founder and secretary-general tells Scrip in an interview.

Hanmi’s head of new product development elucidated the leading Korean pharma firm’s digital healthcare strategy at a recent domestic forum, including plans for the country’s first medicine/DTx combo, and shared views on what is needed to improve the domestic regulatory and market environment.

With just 14% of active pharmaceutical ingredients estimated to be made in the US and China’s overall dominance in the space, a new study points to the pressing need for the US to address bottlenecks in the supply chain and proposes a string of approaches to partner with India in its de-risking efforts.

The weak yen helped push up both global revenues and costs for major Japanese firms in the fiscal year ended 31 March, while good mainstay growth benefited Daiichi Sankyo and Astellas. Chugai meanwhile had a challenging start to its calendar financial year due to lower pandemic drug stockpiling.

A material shift in China derisking discussions by big biopharma against the backdrop of the proposed US BIOSECURE Bill is seen presenting opportunities for Syngene, though the tight US biotech funding environment dampened demand for the Indian CRDMO’s R&D services in Q4.

Quietly but unambiguously, pharma firms are accelerating their diversification away from China and are now looking to other emerging markets for growth, a strategy that reflects increasing pressures from China's volume-based procurement scheme but also US-China tensions and other geopolitical risks.

In this video interview, Sharon Chan, vice-president, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS Asia Pacific, shares her views on what South Korea’s strengths are as a biotech and medtech R&D hub, JLABS's plans in the country and what role it wants for its local activities domestically and beyond.

A China green light for domestic firm Avistone's c-Met inhibitor was based on positive outcomes from the Phase II/III FUGEN study in Chinese patients with recurrent relapsing glioma with the rare PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene. Avistone’s overseas partner Apollomics is also studying the molecule in a Phase II program outside China.

The US FDA’s observations at its radiopharma manufacturing facility in Canada could be a headwind for Jubilant Pharmova, but reorientation of US generics manufacturing is expected to boost profits. Scrip takes a look at the likely impact.

More legal action in India that has the Bolar exception provision at its crux with Roche, in this instance, warding off a local drug maker in the Evrysdi patent infringement case.

Guest Andrew McConaghie from Scrip's UK team joins Brian Yang and Dexter Yan to discuss AACR highlights from Chinese biotechs, European perspectives on the proposed US BIOSECURE Act, two recent acquisitions and Boehringer Ingelheim's recent quarterly results.

Ichnos Glenmark Innovation’s president and CEO talks to Scrip about the promising activity profile of the alliance’s early stage trispecific antibody versus Janssen’s teclistamab and also maintains that the setback for Gilead’s magrolimab hasn’t eclipsed prospects for its bispecific antibody.

Joincare Pharmaceutical and partner TaiGen Biotechnology tout preliminary Phase III results in uncomplicated acute influenza for TG-1000, a homegrown follower of Shionogi/Roche’s oral antiviral Xofluza. Novel antivirals for flu were hotly pursued by Chinese developers throughout 2023.

Scrip's APAC team selects notable quotes from recent interviews, conferences and other coverage to highlight the views of senior executives and officials on the major topics facing the biopharma sector in the region.

Major Japanese companies Takeda, Astellas and SMBC are joining hands to establish a new joint venture with $3.9m capital and based in Japan’s largest biocluster Shonan iPark to help incubate local biopharma start-ups.