Ep. 330 - China's Innovation Moment

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[AI-generated transcript.]

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Welcome to a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Today we are coming to you from one of the most active biotech hubs in the world, Shanghai.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>On today's podcast, we will deliver the key takeaways from the 12th annual BioCentury BayHelix China Healthcare Summit with our special guests, Matt Hewitt, VP and CTO of Charles Rivers Manufacturing Business Division.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>We have Bing Wang, CFO of China, biotech kind of high flying China biotech Akeso, and we have.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>John Zhu of Duality Biologics.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>He's the CEO of this company that got the current wave of biotech IPOs rolling on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>late last year, I think it was from the BioCentury side.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>We have the illustrious Simone Fishburn

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<v Simone Fishburn>illustrious this week.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Okay.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Our editor in chief, vice President.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>And notorious Washington Commanders fan, Josh Berlin, who's actually the man behind the curtain of all of our conferences, as you heard, at the beginning of today,

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<v Simone Fishburn>and I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, I think he is the heart and soul of the China Healthcare Summit.

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<v Simone Fishburn>I, it's the heart and soul.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Heart and souls.

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<v Josh Berlin>Tough, tough, uh, bar there.

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<v Josh Berlin>But I'll, I'll get, this is the nice, they called worse.

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<v Simone Fishburn>This is the nicest we're ever gonna be, Josh.

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<v Simone Fishburn>So take it, you know.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>All right.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Well, you may have heard the term China speed.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Has anybody heard that term before?

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Yeah.

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<v Simone Fishburn>China speed.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Well, buckle up, few of us just toward, the Zhangjiang Science Park.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>me for the first time,  uh, we're top biopharmas from around the world and around China, have set up shop, and I'm here to tell you that.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Clinical trials in China are getting even faster, if you can believe that.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>So we'll talk the accelerating pace of clinical development.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>On today's podcast, we'll also talk about Innovent's$1.2 billion deal with Takeda and why the move is a giant step toward global innovation for the Suzhou company.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>And green shoots in the financing market are coming in the form of capital flowing again here in China in an IPO market, as I just mentioned in Hong Kong, that's kind of leaving NASDAQ in the dust when it comes to IPOs at least.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>None of this, of course, could happen without talent, and I'm looking around the room here and I see a lot of talent.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>We'll discuss how China's talent pool is rapidly evolving, and we'll also talk about the direction of biotech innovation.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Simone, let's start with accelerating clinical trials.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Uh, what have you learned this week?

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<v Jeff Cranmer>What have you seen?

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<v Simone Fishburn>Right.

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<v Simone Fishburn>So, you know, for context, I wasn't on that tour just to stipulate that.

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<v Simone Fishburn>but I heard great things about it, and you're gonna talk about it in a minute, maybe.

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<v Simone Fishburn>but, you know, sitting through a really extraordinary couple of days of panels, some take homes that we got, well,  I think it's very well known inside China and our message really is to.

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<v Simone Fishburn>People in the other ecosystems, the U.S.

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<v Simone Fishburn>and Europe, Really understanding what an impact is gonna have globally, the way that clinical trial and clinical trial starts or accelerating in China.

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<v Simone Fishburn>China is really setting a new bar for this.

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<v Simone Fishburn>we are seeing, you know, one of the most important, perhaps underrecognized in the west, moves.

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<v Simone Fishburn>That was by Esobiotec who were in Europe trying to get things done on very little money and realizing that the way to do that for them was to come and run their clinical trial in China.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And in a very short amount of time.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And what did we talk about with like four patients or fewer even, you know, maybe even fewer than that.

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<v Simone Fishburn>They flipped that into a deal with AstraZeneca.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And so, you know, my, my feeling really is that China's setting a new bar, we're seeing the U.K.

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<v Simone Fishburn>set itself new standards for reverting to what it used to do.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And going beyond that in terms of accelerating clinical trials.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And we all know that this really is the biggest bottleneck.

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<v Simone Fishburn>In drug development is going from discovery into humans.

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<v Simone Fishburn>I mean that is, that is the bit that takes forever and where, you know, your failure rates are very high.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And so if you can really bend the curve on how long it takes you to get well in speeding up,  getting that human clinical data.

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<v Simone Fishburn>You can really start to change the paradigm and I, I personally think that that might be where China has  a massive impact globally.

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<v Simone Fishburn>So those are my thoughts on that.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Do you wanna pick it up from there?

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<v Bing Wang>Sure.

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<v Bing Wang>Thank you Simone.

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<v Bing Wang>I think.

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<v Bing Wang>You nailed it.

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<v Bing Wang>I think having Jean-Pierre on the stage, um, yesterday was a, a perfect example of the integration of China's innovation in the global stage.

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<v Bing Wang>Here is a very scrappy entrepreneur, have much lower resources than compared to some of the U.S.

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<v Bing Wang>California and Boston Biotech.

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<v Simone Fishburn>C Can I just interrupt, say.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Just for the audience, this is Jean-Pierre Latere, the CEO of EsoBiotec, right?

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<v Bing Wang>Yes.

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<v Bing Wang>Thank you.

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<v Bing Wang>Yes, John Pierre Issa Biotech.

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<v Bing Wang>Um, so,  you know, very scrappy, very talented entrepreneur.

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<v Bing Wang>Really made the much smaller raise.

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<v Bing Wang>I think he, he did not even break, uh, 20.

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<v Bing Wang>Million euros in terms of his total raise and he was able to get a lot accomplished with that capital, right?

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<v Bing Wang>Comparable to some of the bigger, without naming names, some of the bigger U.S. in vivo CAR T companies, and able to create enough data from both translational quality of the vectors as well as some human data to get AstraZeneca, says, we feel pretty de-risk about this platform and actually did very, very well for his product, for his platform, and for his investors, and I think that story.

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<v Bing Wang>Really nailed it in terms of the last two days of how China is part of the global system today.

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<v Simone Fishburn>So I actually, I wanna take it a step further and play to my internal crowd here and a couple of compliments within this.

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<v Simone Fishburn>I think there are certain times and certain deals, quite often events that some people at the time recognized their importance going forward.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Others take longer.

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<v Simone Fishburn>You could look at the Legend deal with J&J as a really seminal deal for understanding the value of China innovation.

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<v Simone Fishburn>I think what you've just pointed to many people may have have whiffed on that, but that deal that EsoBiotec did and then getting bought, I would say Akeso itself has certainly made a massive splash in terms of making people understand.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Wow.

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<v Simone Fishburn>I mean, that just changed the whole paradigm.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And obviously you've got a lot of followers there, Duality doing similar things, and you know what you've done.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Like the IPO recently is like, oh wait, wait, things are actually happening and the, the boldness of doing that.

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<v Simone Fishburn>And so I think that there are more stories coming out of China.

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<v Simone Fishburn>That we're able to look at globally and say maybe that was the point at which the trajectory took a slightly different term up and up and it's the accumulation of these things.

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<v Simone Fishburn>As said, everybody who's coming to the China conference, Josh, you can pick it up for me in a minute, but we've been coming to this China conference for years.

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<v Simone Fishburn>We've known it for years, but for me it really feels like 2025 is the year that biotech globally woke up to China.

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<v Simone Fishburn>But it's had all these markers all the way along.

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<v Josh Berlin>Yeah, I, I totally agree with that.

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<v Josh Berlin>Uh, Simone and we had a, a tremendous number of folks out this week in Shanghai.

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<v Josh Berlin>lot of our western friends, both from Europe and the U.S.

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<v Josh Berlin>who had not been out to China, before, hadn't been out frequently.

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<v Josh Berlin>And I think some of it is the deal flow that everybody's reading about,  it's almost, um, a deal of the week, kind of news flow.

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<v Josh Berlin>And we obviously saw the, the huge deal, uh, this week that, um, sort of coincided with the, uh, the launch of the event, the Innovent, uh, Takeda deal.

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<v Josh Berlin>that news flow, I think has become almost impossible to ignore.

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<v Josh Berlin>And I think even those who might have, um, sort of discounted, uh, what was happening in China.

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<v Josh Berlin>You know, even a, a year ago, are now, reassessing and trying to understand.

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<v Josh Berlin>What's happening out here, and also whether there might be opportunities for them, much like, EsoBiotec, example, we had quite a few European and Western VCs out this week.

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<v Josh Berlin>Also looking, I think, on behalf of their portfolio companies, they were out here.

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<v Josh Berlin>Also, I think looking for potentially NewCos and other, ways to access innovation, but also thinking about.

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<v Josh Berlin>How, their own portfolio companies in the West might be able to, also accelerate, R&D and accelerate, proof of concept by perhaps, um, leveraging, China.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah, we had the managing director of Google Ventures out, I think it was

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<v Simone Fishburn>Krishna.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah, Krishna.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>I think it was his first time out, if I remember correct.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>And we're gonna dig into the in event deal in, in just a moment.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>but I want to go over to Matt.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>get U.S. back to the speed of the trials.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>And Matt, he doesn't live in Shanghai, but he's here all the time.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Matt, from your perspective, what do you see?

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<v Matthew Hewitt>Yeah, I mean, I think for us you know, playing in, in a lot of the therapeutic development side, what we see is that.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>Companies in general, regardless of modality, are, are truly searching for an environment which colloquially we would call it a fast test, fast fail.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>So it's important to get to clinic as efficiently as possible.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>And then once you get to clinic, it's important to get that, if we wanna call it value inflection point data, that that tells you whether or not a a, an asset or a program has a, a chance at success, whether it's going to late phase or potentially going to commercial at some point.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>And over the last, from what I've seen, seven, eight years here in China, I mean, things have really matured and that's been from multiple perspectives, whether it's the IIT design, the kind of relaunch, uh, of the regulatory framework and from NMPA.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>and, and you know, we have a lot of talent that's been coming back to China and we, I know we'll talk about that soon.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>But point being is, is that the framework here has been streamlined such that you can move assets through much, uh, very efficiently.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>And it has woken up, I think, other parts of the world as well as to that this is now, beginning to look like a trendsetter.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Can I just quickly follow up  to ask you to, um, elaborate on something that we discussed earlier, which is, you know, we talked when I did a story a few months ago about how different regulatory agencies across the world are looking at risk differently and how that is actually changing the pace of getting into the clinic.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Can you just

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<v Matthew Hewitt>Yeah.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>Sure.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Elaborate on that?

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<v Matthew Hewitt>Yeah, so  in the past we've kind of talked about what's phase appropriate for.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>companies as they're moving products through development in, into, into clinical, in the U.S. as an example, we typically divide things into early and late phase clinical.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>Uh, and depending on the modality, it's either phase one or it's phase one or phase two.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>And it really depends upon when you're going into a potentially pivotal phase.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>I think what we have kind of re termed that this year is, is it's not really phase appropriate, but it's risk appropriate because that's how the regulators view the world.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>They don't view the world through data.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>They view the world through risk.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>And so the ideas is that the regulators are looking for a path that is most efficient, where you can, uh, provide the highest quality product or therapy to patients at the lowest risk.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>I think what we've seen here is, is that, there's been a.

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<v Matthew Hewitt>a very collaborative approach to understanding what the proper, risk is for each phase so that we can move things very efficiently and so we can try to provide patients with cutting edge therapies that they need.

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<v Bing Wang>I think what was very helpful last few days, you hear from Li Chen at Hua, you heard it from funding from McKinsey, that the government here is very, very responsive and we actually iterate with the industry and how to make things better from both translation.

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<v Bing Wang>from both an IND process, clinical, all the way to, they even talked about a, a novel way of, of, you know, beyond the NRDL, how to actually get this to patients to just additional way of paying.

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<v Bing Wang>So I think the government here is very, very responsive to the needs of the industry.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Hmm.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>And, and thanks.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Thanks Bing I, I wanna get the names out there.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>So our listeners who aren't with us here in the room, and, and Matt appreciated the points there.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>I wanna bring John into the conversation now.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>So for those who of you who might not be familiar with Duality, uh, you might be living under a rock.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>I was gonna say that, that

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<v Simone Fishburn>three people out there who have been spent the last two years in the desert, maybe

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<v Jeff Cranmer>someone, uh, yeah.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Someone out there may not have heard, but for those of you, uh, as I mentioned, the IPO, one of the top dealmaking China biotechs, I think four deals all for ADCs.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>so you're in the clinic, from where you sit, what are you seeing evolve with clinical trials?

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<v John Zhu>Yeah.

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<v John Zhu>First of all, we went IPO, uh, April this year, so Oh, was April.

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<v John Zhu>April, 15th to be exact.

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<v John Zhu>Wow.

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<v John Zhu>And, um, I still remember when we go to Hong Kong for the road show, which is April 7th, that's exactly the, uh, trade war happens.

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<v John Zhu>And Hong Kong Hang Seng Index was down like 15% in one day.

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<v John Zhu>And, uh.

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<v John Zhu>was think I were crazy because we want to do the, I remember everyone

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<v Simone Fishburn>going, that was bold.

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<v Simone Fishburn>Wow.

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<v Simone Fishburn>You know?

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>So that's, so sorry I got the time wrong.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>I mean, China speed is so fast.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>If I may borrow a line from Stephen Wright, it's like putting instant coffee in a microwave and going back in time.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>But John, yeah, and

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<v John Zhu>that's, and and yes.

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<v John Zhu>So we, have about six deals.

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<v John Zhu>total deal size is 6 billion U.S.

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<v John Zhu>dollar.

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<v John Zhu>And that, um,  from payment and, uh, new milestones, we collect, uh, more than 5 million U.S. dollars.

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<v John Zhu>So we, we did get cash we can really can help us to survive for, for a while.

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<v John Zhu>And, uh, talk about a clinical trial.

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<v John Zhu>this is one of our vision from day one, become a global bio pharma by global meaning that we really want to, for patients global.

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<v John Zhu>And, uh, we wanna build a global clinical team and a global product.

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<v John Zhu>So, not long.

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<v John Zhu>We have about little bit more than 200 employees.

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<v John Zhu>About 30 of them are in U.S.

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<v John Zhu>So by the global trial, which I means really MRCT from day one.

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<v John Zhu>the downside is that actually is actually more costly to do clinical trial in U.S.

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<v John Zhu>as you, as you can tell.

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<v John Zhu>but, we feel that because we want to become a global bio pharma, it's really, we have to demonstrate the efficacy and the safety in global patients, including U.S. patients.

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<v John Zhu>And, talk about the speed up the clinical trial.

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<v John Zhu>To be honest, the sentencing you cannot do, right?

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<v John Zhu>I mean, you have to give drug to patients.

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<v John Zhu>They have to go through cycle one, cycle two, right.

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<v John Zhu>The sentencing, you, you just have to respect the law.

00:15:06.839 --> 00:15:09.140
<v John Zhu>Of course, you have to respect the quality.

00:15:09.508 --> 00:15:12.043
<v John Zhu>why, why think like Chinese biotech?

00:15:12.177 --> 00:15:14.812
<v John Zhu>We are faster if you think about that, right?

00:15:15.413 --> 00:15:21.754
<v John Zhu>I think the reason why we're faster is that sometimes we can cut the, what, what we call white space.

00:15:22.254 --> 00:15:23.688
<v John Zhu>Just give one example, right.

00:15:24.056 --> 00:15:27.860
<v John Zhu>we deliver the IND from IND to first patient.

00:15:28.760 --> 00:15:32.163
<v John Zhu>Some company take like three months or four months, and they think it's normal.

00:15:32.498 --> 00:15:33.731
<v John Zhu>We think it's not normal.

00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:39.504
<v John Zhu>We take like, one month, you know, 45 days first patient, right?

00:15:39.871 --> 00:15:42.607
<v John Zhu>And, uh, from our first patient to end of Phase II meeting.

00:15:43.174 --> 00:15:49.014
<v John Zhu>20 months and people think it'll take like three years and four years long months, we think 20 months.

00:15:49.280 --> 00:15:50.649
<v John Zhu>So we do work hard.

00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:52.518
<v John Zhu>We can cut some waste space.

00:15:52.918 --> 00:16:03.128
<v John Zhu>But in the end, Jeff, I think most important thing is that you need to have a clear clinical strategy that's most important, really solve, uh, unmet medical needs.

00:16:03.394 --> 00:16:04.163
<v John Zhu>That's number one.

00:16:04.697 --> 00:16:07.231
<v John Zhu>And number two, you really have to understand.

00:16:07.499 --> 00:16:12.837
<v John Zhu>Both the U.S. practice and the China practice, and sometimes there are synergy between each other.

00:16:13.205 --> 00:16:17.176
<v John Zhu>In China, for example, enrollment is actually indeed faster.

00:16:17.809 --> 00:16:26.684
<v John Zhu>So currently we have, you know, more than 2,700 patients worldwide, 50% of them are actually X China, including U.S.

00:16:26.719 --> 00:16:27.485
<v John Zhu>and Australia.

00:16:28.354 --> 00:16:30.589
<v John Zhu>But the China patients actually helps a lot.

00:16:31.056 --> 00:16:31.389
<v John Zhu>Right.

00:16:31.389 --> 00:16:39.798
<v John Zhu>So when design MRCT, that's the beauty of MRCT instead doing China only, or U.S. on only, you are not helping each other, right?

00:16:40.099 --> 00:16:41.232
<v John Zhu>Just give one example.

00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:47.673
<v John Zhu>we have a partnership with BioNTech for a HER2 ADC TROP2 and ADC.

00:16:48.006 --> 00:16:56.815
<v John Zhu>Just give one example regarding ADC which is a really good target expressed in multiple tumors, including small cell lung cancer, CRPC.

00:16:57.416 --> 00:16:58.917
<v John Zhu>HCC, cervical cancer.

00:16:59.317 --> 00:17:07.759
<v John Zhu>Our first patient is 2023, July at the time Daiichi way ahead of us have us now we load more than 600 patient.

00:17:08.192 --> 00:17:16.434
<v John Zhu>We're showing indications, you know, for example, in other, in like HCC cervical cancer show signals even ahead of Daiichi.

00:17:16.634 --> 00:17:18.871
<v John Zhu>So let's talk about the, China speed.

00:17:19.238 --> 00:17:19.738
<v John Zhu>I'll stop here.

00:17:19.805 --> 00:17:19.938
<v John Zhu>Yeah,

00:17:19.971 --> 00:17:25.676
<v Simone Fishburn>so, so I wanna actually follow up to, to both of you guys with something that you said there, which is that you said that.

00:17:26.478 --> 00:17:33.618
<v Simone Fishburn>from day one you decided to be a global biotech, and I don't know if Akeso has made that same decision.

00:17:33.919 --> 00:17:45.130
<v Simone Fishburn>it does bring us back to the in Innovent story and what was notable really in that deal mean you, you might wanna talk about a little bit also, is the, is the fact that they retained 40%.

00:17:45.864 --> 00:17:50.501
<v Simone Fishburn>Rights to 40% of the, well both costs and,  profits in the U.S.

00:17:50.836 --> 00:18:01.646
<v Simone Fishburn>And I am wondering whether this mold, which (BeiGene) BeOne has really been the pioneer of, in terms of starting, like being a China-based company that started with a global outlook.

00:18:01.646 --> 00:18:12.657
<v Simone Fishburn>And if you think that we're gonna have more and more China companies that have that global way of, of thinking, can you, can you talk a little bit about that and whether it's what the, the importance of the Innovent deal?

00:18:13.224 --> 00:18:15.426
<v Bing Wang>I, I think that was a very good deal for both parties.

00:18:15.493 --> 00:18:20.632
<v Bing Wang>Um, I think in particular, the fact that they're made a deal with Takeda as opposed to being, you know, U.S.

00:18:20.632 --> 00:18:22.701
<v Bing Wang>pharma was, was actually quite notable.

00:18:22.934 --> 00:18:26.471
<v Bing Wang>But I, I will say this, Innovent is not your typical China biotech.

00:18:26.538 --> 00:18:26.605
<v Simone Fishburn>Mm-hmm.

00:18:26.872 --> 00:18:26.939
<v Bing Wang>Right.

00:18:26.939 --> 00:18:27.405
<v Bing Wang>There's probably.

00:18:28.773 --> 00:18:30.808
<v Bing Wang>Three or four companies of size, right.

00:18:30.808 --> 00:18:39.718
<v Bing Wang>BeOne, Innovent ourselves Akeso, maybe Coen, you know, where we have the balance sheet and the capabilities to be be to do that.

00:18:39.852 --> 00:18:40.018
<v Simone Fishburn>Mm-hmm.

00:18:40.318 --> 00:18:44.056
<v Bing Wang>I think Innovent did a very, very good job in China commercializing their product.

00:18:44.423 --> 00:18:46.325
<v Bing Wang>But this is not true for most biotech.

00:18:46.357 --> 00:18:52.330
<v Bing Wang>Just like in the U.S. a lot of biotech don't have the resources, so they would actually take more capital and give away more later term.

00:18:52.330 --> 00:18:53.164
<v Simone Fishburn>I'm not sure how many.

00:18:53.832 --> 00:18:59.070
<v Simone Fishburn>U.S. biotechs set themselves up and say, I'm gonna be a global biotech.

00:18:59.203 --> 00:18:59.371
<v Bing Wang>Yeah.

00:18:59.671 --> 00:19:04.143
<v Bing Wang>But I think to add to that point, and I think, Simone, you brought up a very good example.

00:19:04.576 --> 00:19:07.011
<v Bing Wang>I think the first company to really do this is actually Legend.

00:19:07.479 --> 00:19:21.826
<v Bing Wang>And the, the reason that you can get this type of leverage, and I wanna highlight the Legend as a really good example, Carvykti was really the first case where a product, a therapy that come from China, fundamentally changed global standard of care.

00:19:22.693 --> 00:19:24.429
<v Bing Wang>Right, because here we talked about innovation.

00:19:24.429 --> 00:19:32.871
<v Bing Wang>We talk about China's speed, we talk about efficient capital, but end of the day, can a molecule that came out of China, change standard of care for every human being on earth.

00:19:33.505 --> 00:19:36.008
<v Bing Wang>That's what we hope to do at Akeso, with Ivonescimab, by the way.

00:19:36.074 --> 00:19:36.407
<v Bing Wang>Right?

00:19:36.407 --> 00:19:39.877
<v Bing Wang>And obviously with a bigger total addressable market for lung cancer, multiple myeloma.

00:19:39.877 --> 00:19:42.381
<v Bing Wang>But I think Legend really pioneered that.

00:19:42.847 --> 00:19:45.317
<v Bing Wang>And I think that needs to be emphasized.

00:19:45.384 --> 00:19:48.053
<v Bing Wang>And I think, looking at the long game, right?

00:19:48.053 --> 00:19:50.689
<v Bing Wang>can our product change standard care for every human being on earth?

00:19:51.088 --> 00:20:00.699
<v Bing Wang>That confidence and then the resources behind it, which Innovent has their, their, you know, significant market cap, significant balance sheet, significant P&L in China to support that.

00:20:01.032 --> 00:20:03.468
<v Bing Wang>That's what allowed them to do the deal with Takeda, with those structure.

00:20:04.469 --> 00:20:11.009
<v Jeff Cranmer>And that's of course Legends deal with Johnson and Johnson, for a CAR T I saw Matt wanting to jump in there.

00:20:11.009 --> 00:20:12.743
<v Jeff Cranmer>Matt, what are your thoughts on the Innovent deal?

00:20:13.045 --> 00:20:27.925
<v Matthew Hewitt>Uh, well I was just gonna comment more on the, I mean, Innovent, but also the other comments around the clinical trials, because we've actually done some work around this on looking at, how biotechs specifically in the U.S. set up, you know, clinical programs and what's important to them.

00:20:28.693 --> 00:20:34.398
<v Matthew Hewitt>it's single, usually single center, maybe two or three center clinical trials within one geo.

00:20:34.833 --> 00:20:40.372
<v Matthew Hewitt>And in fact, we've asked the question of various biotechs in the U.S. are you thinking about other geos?

00:20:40.705 --> 00:20:48.579
<v Matthew Hewitt>And the answer is always no, because they're not thinking about it until they get through almost a BLA filing before they start thinking about other geos.

00:20:49.714 --> 00:21:11.103
<v Matthew Hewitt>So I think that is somewhat unique that something we see here in China, to John's point that, you know, where you're gonna see, um,  these China, China biotechs really take on some multiple geos at the same time, even simultaneously, even if we're talking about China in Australia, where, you know, with TGA it's quite accepting of, of new, uh, trials.

00:21:11.103 --> 00:21:13.372
<v Matthew Hewitt>There's, there's various tax credits that are there.

00:21:13.672 --> 00:21:19.944
<v Matthew Hewitt>you've got well-defined patient populations with a lot of the population being sequenced, even in different, even in different states in Australia.

00:21:20.278 --> 00:21:22.681
<v Matthew Hewitt>But then of course, then you're always looking at the U.S.

00:21:22.681 --> 00:21:28.119
<v Matthew Hewitt>because generally, even if it's, it's not really reciprocity, but there will be one way.

00:21:28.686 --> 00:21:31.088
<v Matthew Hewitt>recognition of like a U.S.

00:21:31.088 --> 00:21:37.762
<v Matthew Hewitt>IND by China, by Australia, that minimizes your need to do additional activities to set up clinical activities.

00:21:37.929 --> 00:21:39.597
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah, man, I, I wanted to ask you something.

00:21:39.597 --> 00:21:45.304
<v Josh Berlin>So, you know, I took a few meetings, uh, this week when I wasn't on, uh, stage or doing things in this room and.

00:21:45.770 --> 00:21:47.138
<v Josh Berlin>with a few China biotechs.

00:21:47.138 --> 00:21:52.210
<v Josh Berlin>I won't, name and are um, much earlier stage than, uh, than John or Bing's company.

00:21:52.678 --> 00:22:04.522
<v Josh Berlin>But, um, you know, sat through a couple of presentations with them and one thing that was struck me, was,  that several companies, rather than saying sort of proof of concept, which I hear, you know, you hear so much in the U.S.

00:22:04.522 --> 00:22:06.825
<v Josh Berlin>where instead saying proof of signal.

00:22:07.326 --> 00:22:08.727
<v Josh Berlin>That, that that's what they were trying to get.

00:22:08.727 --> 00:22:15.467
<v Josh Berlin>They were trying to get to proof of signal so that they could, essentially use early data to attract, potential partners.

00:22:15.467 --> 00:22:17.702
<v Josh Berlin>So I, I don't know if you, you know, what, what you think about that.

00:22:17.868 --> 00:22:22.007
<v Matthew Hewitt>Yeah, I mean we, we do have that structure, I would say within the U.S.

00:22:22.007 --> 00:22:35.153
<v Matthew Hewitt>and Europe, but we classically call it like phase zeros or kind of looking glass trials where, we'll, similar to EsoBiotec did here, you know, with those 2, 3, 4 patients and then look for some efficacy signal.

00:22:35.554 --> 00:22:38.957
<v Matthew Hewitt>depends on the modality, because many times you're doing lead-in doses.

00:22:38.957 --> 00:22:48.700
<v Matthew Hewitt>And, I think to John's point, I mean, I think the, the white space that's optimized here that enables you to do that is, is one, kind of time to set up.

00:22:48.700 --> 00:22:53.904
<v Matthew Hewitt>So, you know, within the U.S. and Europe, it can take a year to activate a single clinical site, whereas here.

00:22:54.373 --> 00:22:57.108
<v Matthew Hewitt>It's, it's far, far shorter, let's just put it that way.

00:22:57.476 --> 00:23:09.554
<v Matthew Hewitt>And then I think, you know, some of the other things that we see on the clinical side around spacing out dosing required, wait periods between dosing between patients, you know, as much more minimized here on our risk adjusted basis.

00:23:09.554 --> 00:23:14.025
<v Matthew Hewitt>So, you know, we can speed things up and get to that signal much more quickly.

00:23:15.093 --> 00:23:18.563
<v Jeff Cranmer>Alright, we're uh, gonna go to a break shortly.

00:23:18.930 --> 00:23:21.199
<v Jeff Cranmer>and then we'll come back and we'll talk about the.

00:23:21.432 --> 00:23:28.707
<v Jeff Cranmer>talent, we're gonna talk about the direction of innovation, and we're gonna talk about the financial markets.

00:23:28.973 --> 00:23:31.843
<v Jeff Cranmer>so we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.

00:23:32.277 --> 00:23:36.948
<v Alanna Farro>BioCentury This Week is brought to you by The 5th East-West Biopharma Summit in South Korea.

00:23:40.352 --> 00:23:47.792
<v Alanna Farro>An arc of innovation is emerging across Asia, and Western biopharma leaders are taking note-from cross-border deals to newcos.

00:23:48.093 --> 00:23:54.699
<v Alanna Farro>In March, 2026, The 5th BioCentury-BayHelix East-West BioPharma Summit visits South Korea for the first time.

00:23:55.166 --> 00:23:58.970
<v Alanna Farro>Meet the biopharma leaders putting Korea innovation on the global map.

00:23:59.371 --> 00:24:02.773
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00:24:03.141 --> 00:24:06.545
<v Alanna Farro>Discover if Korea is the next hotspot for NewCo formation.

00:24:06.845 --> 00:24:11.182
<v Alanna Farro>Plus, meet biopharma innovators from India to Singapore, to China and Japan.

00:24:11.682 --> 00:24:14.219
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00:24:19.958 --> 00:24:21.358
<v Jeff Cranmer>And we're back.

00:24:21.726 --> 00:24:31.936
<v Jeff Cranmer>Simone,  are, we've heard from a lot of our Indian colleagues that they were a little pissed off at Josh that he made this meeting during Diwali.

00:24:31.936 --> 00:24:38.042
<v Jeff Cranmer>Last year, Josh kind of got me a little miffed 'cause he made the meeting at Halloween.

00:24:38.076 --> 00:24:38.210
<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah.

00:24:38.442 --> 00:24:46.417
<v Jeff Cranmer>But you know, if you move it a little earlier, not only do you get to skip ESMO, which I'm sure everyone would love, but it could be during.

00:24:46.917 --> 00:24:49.653
<v Simone Fishburn>So I, I wanna jump in here, Jeff.

00:24:49.653 --> 00:24:51.823
<v Simone Fishburn>And um, I think we have to break it to Josh.

00:24:51.823 --> 00:24:52.324
<v Simone Fishburn>I've been.

00:24:52.624 --> 00:24:56.461
<v Simone Fishburn>Hinting to him for two days that there is this ground swell.

00:24:56.461 --> 00:25:06.337
<v Simone Fishburn>There is this like huge number of people at this conference who want this conference set during the Shanghai Tennis Open next year, Josh.

00:25:06.570 --> 00:25:08.874
<v Simone Fishburn>So, you know, I'm going public with this.

00:25:08.906 --> 00:25:10.407
<v Simone Fishburn>And the, the pressure's on

00:25:10.942 --> 00:25:11.942
<v Josh Berlin>we're, we're working on it.

00:25:12.777 --> 00:25:13.278
<v Simone Fishburn>Most notably.

00:25:13.278 --> 00:25:14.980
<v Simone Fishburn>I think that was a yes, right?

00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:15.980
<v Simone Fishburn>I think I heard a yes.

00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:16.114
<v Simone Fishburn>Then

00:25:16.181 --> 00:25:20.919
<v Jeff Cranmer>most notably a young man named Alcaraz who has an intense interest in biotech.

00:25:20.919 --> 00:25:21.987
<v Jeff Cranmer>I understand.

00:25:22.354 --> 00:25:26.156
<v Jeff Cranmer>You might wanna become a stakeholder in a Akeso or perhaps Duality

00:25:26.258 --> 00:25:27.092
<v Simone Fishburn>keynote speaker more likely.

00:25:27.325 --> 00:25:28.593
<v Josh Berlin>He could be a family office.

00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:29.260
<v Josh Berlin>Maybe a family office play.

00:25:29.426 --> 00:25:33.163
<v Jeff Cranmer>And Simone, I also noticed you, you had some interesting looking socks on today.

00:25:33.163 --> 00:25:34.132
<v Jeff Cranmer>You wanna tell us about

00:25:34.132 --> 00:25:35.933
<v Simone Fishburn>we're going this, I think, I think you should.

00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.903
<v Simone Fishburn>I think you should start with, Josh and Matt's socks.

00:25:39.503 --> 00:25:40.939
<v Jeff Cranmer>Oh my goodness.

00:25:40.939 --> 00:25:41.373
<v Jeff Cranmer>Look at these things.

00:25:42.073 --> 00:25:43.642
<v Jeff Cranmer>BioCentury's this week.

00:25:43.642 --> 00:25:45.242
<v Jeff Cranmer>Podcast socks.

00:25:45.442 --> 00:25:45.844
<v Josh Berlin>Yes.

00:25:45.844 --> 00:25:55.319
<v Josh Berlin>We need to give full credit to, uh, Brian Denker, who was mentioned earlier for sourcing, a whole bunch of, BioCentury's This Week, socks, this week, in Shanghai.

00:25:55.319 --> 00:26:00.892
<v Josh Berlin>So if any, uh, of the listeners wanna a pair of socks, he should try to track down Jeff or.

00:26:01.159 --> 00:26:02.259
<v Josh Berlin>Simone at the next event.

00:26:02.259 --> 00:26:05.363
<v Simone Fishburn>You gotta come to a, you gotta come to a live podcast to get the socks.

00:26:05.363 --> 00:26:07.097
<v Simone Fishburn>There's no, I, I wanna to tell you something.

00:26:07.097 --> 00:26:13.003
<v Simone Fishburn>I was shamed at the last conference when I had to go with toenail color 'cause I didn't have the socks.

00:26:13.238 --> 00:26:16.173
<v Simone Fishburn>So I went out and bought some 'cause I was on London on the way.

00:26:16.207 --> 00:26:17.509
<v Simone Fishburn>Some nice London socks here.

00:26:17.709 --> 00:26:17.976
<v Josh Berlin>Those are good..

00:26:17.976 --> 00:26:19.944
<v Jeff Cranmer>Well I'm, I'm paying respect to China here.

00:26:19.978 --> 00:26:21.645
<v Jeff Cranmer>I got some dragon socks.

00:26:22.247 --> 00:26:22.279
<v Jeff Cranmer>Oh.

00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:24.449
<v Jeff Cranmer>Because, uh, yo that's what it's about.

00:26:24.449 --> 00:26:25.717
<v Simone Fishburn>They're a bit low res though.

00:26:25.717 --> 00:26:26.417
<v Simone Fishburn>They need to be more,

00:26:26.417 --> 00:26:27.384
<v Jeff Cranmer>They're low rise.

00:26:27.384 --> 00:26:28.319
<v Jeff Cranmer>It's, uh, it's true.

00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:30.255
<v Jeff Cranmer>I didn't have a lot of time before I got on the plane.

00:26:30.721 --> 00:26:38.797
<v Jeff Cranmer>So you may have seen that sign on some people's desks that say, I'm silently judging your grammar.

00:26:38.829 --> 00:26:40.397
<v Jeff Cranmer>Has anyone seen that sign?

00:26:40.464 --> 00:26:41.865
<v Jeff Cranmer>Maybe it's just an editor's thing.

00:26:42.601 --> 00:26:50.141
<v Jeff Cranmer>Here at BioCentury's, when you're on a panel, we're silently judging your socks and for being a good sport and coming out today.

00:26:50.141 --> 00:26:55.079
<v Jeff Cranmer>John, you've just won a pair of BioCentury This Week socks.

00:26:56.615 --> 00:26:57.182
<v Jeff Cranmer>All right.

00:26:59.284 --> 00:27:03.654
<v Jeff Cranmer>Alright, well let's turn to the financial markets and hey, we have a CFO on our panel.

00:27:03.654 --> 00:27:05.457
<v Jeff Cranmer>So Bing, I'm gonna go to you.

00:27:05.690 --> 00:27:06.958
<v Jeff Cranmer>what were you hearing this week?

00:27:07.759 --> 00:27:10.862
<v Bing Wang>I think, um, across different stages of capital.

00:27:10.929 --> 00:27:16.267
<v Bing Wang>I think earlier stage people talk about,   NewCo formation and, and, and how they think about that, right?

00:27:16.300 --> 00:27:17.935
<v Bing Wang>I think, we have.

00:27:18.403 --> 00:27:21.405
<v Bing Wang>some experienced Chinese VCs like James Wang talk about it.

00:27:21.439 --> 00:27:23.508
<v Bing Wang>You know, it's another source of,  funding assets.

00:27:23.807 --> 00:27:28.980
<v Bing Wang>But then we also had a panel that had some bankers and,  folks that are more later stage in the capital.

00:27:29.079 --> 00:27:36.121
<v Bing Wang>you know, I think Bin Li at Lake Bleu also talked about this, that, you know, people are basically asking what is the state of the Hong Kong market?

00:27:36.221 --> 00:27:39.691
<v Bing Wang>You know, I think a lot of people are saying potentially there may be.

00:27:40.090 --> 00:27:42.527
<v Bing Wang>A correction, but it wouldn't be a bad thing.

00:27:42.594 --> 00:27:47.332
<v Bing Wang>I think people are still optimistic long term, but maybe some near term volatility is, is what we're hearing.

00:27:47.699 --> 00:27:50.801
<v Bing Wang>But definitely a lot of folks have seen that.

00:27:50.835 --> 00:27:53.238
<v Bing Wang>Um, biotech is, is um, is innovating.

00:27:53.238 --> 00:28:01.346
<v Bing Wang>I think end of the day this is no different than NASDAQ where you know, you have to show the data and so far I think, um, the China biotechs have, have delivered on the data.

00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:02.513
<v Simone Fishburn>So

00:28:02.513 --> 00:28:04.415
<v Jeff Cranmer>We've seen, far more IPOs.

00:28:04.415 --> 00:28:09.319
<v Jeff Cranmer>I forget the exact number, but far more IPOs have gotten out on the Hong Kong exchange

00:28:09.319 --> 00:28:09.421
<v Bing Wang>Mm-hmm.

00:28:09.653 --> 00:28:10.989
<v Jeff Cranmer>than Nasdaq this year.

00:28:10.989 --> 00:28:11.088
<v Bing Wang>Yes.

00:28:11.388 --> 00:28:14.459
<v Jeff Cranmer>the key indexes in Hong Kong are way up.

00:28:14.558 --> 00:28:14.759
<v Bing Wang>Mm-hmm.

00:28:15.026 --> 00:28:18.663
<v Jeff Cranmer>John, uh, why was April the right time for you guys to go out?

00:28:18.663 --> 00:28:22.200
<v Jeff Cranmer>I don't, until you got out, I think it had been pretty quiet

00:28:22.333 --> 00:28:23.067
<v John Zhu>We're the first one.

00:28:23.233 --> 00:28:23.601
<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah,

00:28:23.835 --> 00:28:25.603
<v Josh Berlin>you sort of caught the beginning of the wave there.

00:28:25.603 --> 00:28:25.903
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah.

00:28:25.970 --> 00:28:28.138
<v Simone Fishburn>Well maybe they, I mean, caught the beginning of the wave.

00:28:28.573 --> 00:28:29.307
<v Simone Fishburn>They created the wave.

00:28:29.307 --> 00:28:29.840
<v Josh Berlin>caused the wave.

00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:30.107
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah.

00:28:30.974 --> 00:28:39.183
<v John Zhu>I think because we are crazy, so, so we actually have a, um, long show with investors in March.

00:28:39.217 --> 00:28:42.686
<v John Zhu>It's actually, they're pretty about our asset.

00:28:43.421 --> 00:28:46.958
<v John Zhu>Because we, we have assess that have, global potential.

00:28:46.958 --> 00:28:52.430
<v John Zhu>For example, our B73, we have the opting we can co-develop with BioNTech.

00:28:52.896 --> 00:29:00.605
<v John Zhu>This is similar to like, uh, J&J's 19 Legend deal co-development, and so many U.S. long term investors.

00:29:00.605 --> 00:29:01.705
<v John Zhu>They are very interested in this story.

00:29:01.705 --> 00:29:04.509
<v John Zhu>So I feel like, hmm, we might have a chance.

00:29:04.776 --> 00:29:11.348
<v John Zhu>And then according to plan, so we we're going to launch IPO April and then hit the trade war.

00:29:11.348 --> 00:29:15.586
<v John Zhu>So, but at that time, to be honest, we have not a choice.

00:29:15.953 --> 00:29:17.654
<v John Zhu>We can back off, right.

00:29:17.922 --> 00:29:21.125
<v John Zhu>And choose another point, but who knows what's going to happen.

00:29:21.125 --> 00:29:25.096
<v John Zhu>So we just, so since I'm crazy, I just go out and do the IPO, so.

00:29:25.563 --> 00:29:27.598
<v Simone Fishburn>I wanna go back to your point.

00:29:27.664 --> 00:29:29.834
<v Simone Fishburn>I heard sort of a couple of themes.

00:29:29.834 --> 00:29:33.371
<v Simone Fishburn>Now you, what did, what was the word you, you used the word correction, right?

00:29:33.605 --> 00:29:39.109
<v Simone Fishburn>And I think the words ranged from bubble, it's a bubble that will burst.

00:29:39.109 --> 00:29:40.244
<v Bing Wang>Try hard not to say that word.

00:29:40.345 --> 00:29:41.179
<v Bing Wang>Yes, you, you

00:29:41.179 --> 00:29:42.579
<v Simone Fishburn>tried, but other people said it.

00:29:42.579 --> 00:29:42.846
<v Simone Fishburn>Right.

00:29:42.846 --> 00:29:45.950
<v Simone Fishburn>And then there was frothy and then there was correction.

00:29:45.950 --> 00:29:50.587
<v Simone Fishburn>And generally a feeling that valuations might be too high.

00:29:50.654 --> 00:29:57.996
<v Simone Fishburn>But still, I would say net net, a positive kind of sentiment that that things will.

00:29:58.363 --> 00:30:03.535
<v Simone Fishburn>Maintain in a, in a good direction is, is that, you know, one was like, yes, we're outta the tunnel.

00:30:03.535 --> 00:30:05.002
<v Simone Fishburn>Like, is the light at the end of the tunnel?

00:30:05.002 --> 00:30:06.637
<v Simone Fishburn>We're outta the tunnel kind of thing.

00:30:07.070 --> 00:30:07.337
<v Bing Wang>Yeah.

00:30:07.337 --> 00:30:10.674
<v Bing Wang>I think if, if I could comment on that maybe more broadly.

00:30:10.674 --> 00:30:15.480
<v Bing Wang>I think what we discovered that investors all around the world.

00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:18.082
<v Bing Wang>Have no problem investing in the Hong Kong market.

00:30:18.348 --> 00:30:19.616
<v Bing Wang>It's a very robust market.

00:30:19.616 --> 00:30:20.785
<v Bing Wang>It's a very developed market.

00:30:21.251 --> 00:30:33.597
<v Bing Wang>You know, I think after New York, maybe after London, you know, Hong Kong's a very developed market that gives people a lot of confidence in the quality of the investors, the quality of the regulatory requirement to be listed.

00:30:33.964 --> 00:30:40.771
<v Bing Wang>And then, you know, the quality of the company's here, you know, so, at Akeso we did a$250 million raise last October.

00:30:40.771 --> 00:30:43.040
<v Bing Wang>In August we did a$450 million raise.

00:30:43.407 --> 00:30:45.977
<v Bing Wang>Most of the investors are overseas, right?

00:30:45.977 --> 00:30:47.979
<v Bing Wang>We have a lot of investors that came in from Europe.

00:30:48.011 --> 00:30:50.080
<v Bing Wang>We have some quite a bit from the U.S.

00:30:50.080 --> 00:30:57.154
<v Bing Wang>and obviously Singapore and, and other areas, but it's a very international set of investors that came into our cap table.

00:30:57.555 --> 00:31:08.967
<v Bing Wang>So I think with that in mind, and obviously, you know, we're of a, of a different size and many of the other companies that recently listed, but I think good quality companies can list in Hong Kong and don't feel like.

00:31:09.334 --> 00:31:12.403
<v Bing Wang>It's somehow a handicapped just'cause you're not on nasdaq.

00:31:12.436 --> 00:31:17.808
<v Bing Wang>So that is kind of the thing that I would say I want to emphasize is that the Hong Kong market is, is, is quite robust.

00:31:17.808 --> 00:31:24.749
<v Bing Wang>It's gonna have your up and downs like any other market, but we're attracting very international European and North American investors in, into our cap table.

00:31:24.781 --> 00:31:24.848
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah.

00:31:25.083 --> 00:31:25.250
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah.

00:31:25.250 --> 00:31:33.825
<v Josh Berlin>Bing, I mean I, you know, I think for our U.S. listeners, um, you know, the idea that it's in a, a bubble or that there's a, irrational exuberance.

00:31:33.825 --> 00:31:34.959
<v Josh Berlin>It might be a, um.

00:31:35.326 --> 00:31:38.596
<v Josh Berlin>A bit of a shock to folks that haven't been following the story this year.

00:31:38.896 --> 00:31:51.375
<v Josh Berlin>But, you know, I had a few discussions, uh, this week, where, um, a discussion with one of the top, lawyers, uh, in Hong Kong, as well as one of the top bankers who both told me independently that they were turning away work.

00:31:51.608 --> 00:32:00.018
<v Josh Berlin>That they, they literally couldn't handle the workload and were turning away good clients that they would've normally taken 'cause they were afraid they couldn't deliver the work.

00:32:00.317 --> 00:32:08.759
<v Josh Berlin>thought that was an interesting, take when, when the bankers are turning awake, too much work, I won't use the word bubble, but maybe there's something going, something going on.

00:32:09.126 --> 00:32:11.162
<v Josh Berlin>Um, but there's also a, a long queue, right?

00:32:11.194 --> 00:32:14.499
<v Josh Berlin>'cause you need to get approved to go IPO in, in Hong Kong.

00:32:14.499 --> 00:32:15.900
<v Josh Berlin>And there's, there's a pretty long queue right now.

00:32:15.900 --> 00:32:16.366
<v Josh Berlin>The wait was like,

00:32:16.366 --> 00:32:18.869
<v Simone Fishburn>what is it, six months or, I mean, it's, it's a long wait.

00:32:18.936 --> 00:32:19.136
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah.

00:32:19.436 --> 00:32:19.604
<v Simone Fishburn>Yeah.

00:32:19.604 --> 00:32:20.605
<v Simone Fishburn>Six to eight months.

00:32:20.872 --> 00:32:23.273
<v Simone Fishburn>Can, can I pick up on something else that you talked about?

00:32:23.307 --> 00:32:35.286
<v Simone Fishburn>Um, You talked about people rewarding innovation and investors understanding that, tying that together because that's sort of what I wanted to, pick up on as well in terms of the thread, tying that together.

00:32:35.286 --> 00:32:38.990
<v Simone Fishburn>Let's go all the way back to what you said about Legend, setting a new standard.

00:32:39.222 --> 00:32:45.663
<v Simone Fishburn>You yourselves did that at Akeso with the Summit data where you told the world, wait, we can actually be better.

00:32:45.896 --> 00:32:46.263
<v Bing Wang>I'm sorry.

00:32:46.263 --> 00:32:46.830
<v Bing Wang>Our data,

00:32:47.030 --> 00:32:47.531
<v Simone Fishburn>your data,

00:32:47.632 --> 00:32:48.298
<v Bing Wang>Our Akeso data.

00:32:48.298 --> 00:32:49.133
<v Bing Wang>Just be clear.

00:32:49.133 --> 00:32:49.767
<v Bing Wang>The, sorry.

00:32:49.933 --> 00:32:50.601
<v Bing Wang>Absolutely right.

00:32:50.634 --> 00:33:00.811
<v Bing Wang>The, the Akeso data right in within the partnership, but the Akeso data, um, that grabbed the attention of the world because it could be better than Keytruda alone.

00:33:01.144 --> 00:33:06.384
<v Bing Wang>And so that was, I think for many people a turning point.

00:33:06.451 --> 00:33:16.594
<v Bing Wang>Meaning turning their heads to look at, wait a minute, this isn't just a fast follower story and what we are now starting to see is more what we call first order innovation.

00:33:16.760 --> 00:33:29.874
<v Bing Wang>So one of the themes that I wanted to raise, Jeff,  China is known so well for, and we heard this throughout the last two days, its incredible ability to do anything with an antibody fast and whatever you want, right?

00:33:30.074 --> 00:33:32.175
<v Bing Wang>Can make it an ADC, a bispecific ADC.

00:33:32.175 --> 00:33:33.744
<v Bing Wang>You can make it a bispecific, you know, various things.

00:33:34.112 --> 00:33:36.980
<v Bing Wang>But one of the questions that came up is, is it gonna start now?

00:33:37.080 --> 00:33:38.982
<v Bing Wang>Is the next wave gonna be siRNA?

00:33:39.483 --> 00:33:43.186
<v Bing Wang>So we heard that in several different threads and I thought that was interesting.

00:33:43.287 --> 00:33:43.554
<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah.

00:33:43.554 --> 00:33:47.692
<v Jeff Cranmer>Well, um, I guess we also heard a lot about, Gene and cell therapy.

00:33:47.959 --> 00:33:49.926
<v Jeff Cranmer>Uh, what was the number of programs?

00:33:49.961 --> 00:33:57.835
<v Simone Fishburn>Well, there was what the number that I think you're thinking about is, I think Nisa said there are 130 in vivo CAR T programs.

00:33:57.868 --> 00:34:00.104
<v Jeff Cranmer>Yeah, that's right.

00:34:00.104 --> 00:34:03.340
<v Jeff Cranmer>thought that siRNA would be Comparable to that.

00:34:03.508 --> 00:34:04.008
<v Jeff Cranmer>Quickly.

00:34:04.208 --> 00:34:09.146
<v Jeff Cranmer>Uh, Matt, from where you sit, where do you see the direction of innovation going, in China?

00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:16.554
<v Matthew Hewitt>Yeah, I mean, I, coming back to the cell and gene therapy numbers, I mean, we, we track those via several consortia that we're a part of.

00:34:16.554 --> 00:34:22.427
<v Matthew Hewitt>And generally still, I would say that the U.S. is first still in assets and trials.

00:34:22.427 --> 00:34:28.900
<v Matthew Hewitt>I, China has been very, very quickly catching up though, and is definitely nipping at the heels of, of the U.S.

00:34:28.900 --> 00:34:31.835
<v Matthew Hewitt>and certainly I think we're seeing that speed up now.

00:34:31.902 --> 00:34:39.911
<v Matthew Hewitt>and then we're seeing a lot of the  kind of seminal platforms and nucleic acids around siRNA, but other nucleic acid platforms in general.

00:34:40.411 --> 00:34:44.382
<v Matthew Hewitt>and they're coming up to the point where there can be some additional innovation done to them.

00:34:44.782 --> 00:34:51.588
<v Matthew Hewitt>I think it's, uh, you know, given the experience, and the track record that China and the innovators here have in antibodies.

00:34:52.023 --> 00:34:56.626
<v Matthew Hewitt>It is, you know, a ripe area for further innovation and optimization.

00:34:57.027 --> 00:35:05.068
<v Matthew Hewitt>we've got some really good, uh, de-risking in terms of clinical assets that have gone, gone on to become commercial and then in, in multiple geos.

00:35:05.103 --> 00:35:06.804
<v Matthew Hewitt>You know, they've worked out pretty well.

00:35:06.804 --> 00:35:18.148
<v Matthew Hewitt>The, uh, um, I, we didn't touch on this earlier, but another thing that it can be a difficulty is getting clinicians comfortable with a new modality and, and then giving it to patients or prescribing it for patients.

00:35:18.148 --> 00:35:21.985
<v Matthew Hewitt>I know within advanced therapies we always talk about vein to vein time.

00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:32.929
<v Matthew Hewitt>But the actual term that we started using lately is brain to vein, because that's when the clinicians will actually start prescribing them to the patients in large numbers, which is ultimately what the terms, uh, commercial success.

00:35:33.463 --> 00:35:42.739
<v Matthew Hewitt>So I think that coupled with, you know, kind of the familiarity of regulators and reimbursement strategies is gonna be, you know, present a pretty nice, uh, opportunity there.

00:35:43.673 --> 00:35:52.315
<v Jeff Cranmer>we're, kind of coming up on time and I, we, I do want to get to talent, but John, I really do wanna get your take as sort of being at the forefront of ADCs.

00:35:52.617 --> 00:35:53.885
<v Jeff Cranmer>what are you excited about?

00:35:53.885 --> 00:35:56.086
<v Jeff Cranmer>What are you kind of hearing about bubbling up?

00:35:56.219 --> 00:35:57.255
<v Jeff Cranmer>Just, just real quick.

00:35:57.922 --> 00:35:58.322
<v John Zhu>Real quick.

00:35:58.322 --> 00:36:04.094
<v John Zhu>Actually, one year ago I said, uh, something that's actually, at that time it's very radical.

00:36:04.996 --> 00:36:08.865
<v John Zhu>In BioCentury forum, I said watch out, Chinese biotech is coming.

00:36:09.432 --> 00:36:15.940
<v John Zhu>Because biotech is biology plus technology and the Chinese biotech, you know, we're very strong in engineering.

00:36:16.673 --> 00:36:18.742
<v John Zhu>This year, I'm gonna say slightly different point.

00:36:19.342 --> 00:36:22.780
<v John Zhu>I think the boundary between biology, we'll talk about target, right?

00:36:22.847 --> 00:36:33.291
<v John Zhu>And the technology, when we talk about the ADCs linker payload, it's actually become blurred because if you have a strong technology, so you can really help you validate your biology.

00:36:33.925 --> 00:36:39.297
<v John Zhu>Actually you can speed up, speed up your science and therefore have a true innovation like a PD-1, or VEGF.

00:36:40.063 --> 00:36:41.798
<v John Zhu>I'm not sure that's biology or engineering.

00:36:41.932 --> 00:36:44.835
<v John Zhu>We talk about bispecifics but the the boundaries broad.

00:36:45.536 --> 00:36:50.074
<v John Zhu>In summary, I think the true innovation will come out from Chinese biotech.

00:36:50.708 --> 00:36:51.708
<v Simone Fishburn>I agree with that.

00:36:52.210 --> 00:36:54.277
<v Jeff Cranmer>Alright, well, talent is shifting.

00:36:54.311 --> 00:36:56.246
<v Jeff Cranmer>That's one thing I learned this week.

00:36:56.713 --> 00:37:08.425
<v Jeff Cranmer>Back in the day, the leaders of China, biotech companies, 10 years ago, they were returnees the so-called sea turtles who they went to get their PhD in the U.S.

00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:13.164
<v Jeff Cranmer>They worked at Novartis, J&J, you name it.

00:37:13.496 --> 00:37:20.637
<v Jeff Cranmer>They came back, they founded companies and I was talking to  Vince Deng this week, who was at Med-Fine Capital.

00:37:20.637 --> 00:37:23.641
<v Jeff Cranmer>And, and he started a new fund a few years ago.

00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:37.288
<v Jeff Cranmer>And he said for him, he was like, Hey, I'm gonna look at the person who was number two, number three, number four, working for one of these returnees and w ork with them to set up a new company.

00:37:37.288 --> 00:37:38.922
<v Jeff Cranmer>And so that, that was interesting to me.

00:37:38.922 --> 00:37:40.657
<v Jeff Cranmer>I, what, what have you been hearing, Simone?

00:37:40.657 --> 00:37:43.960
<v Simone Fishburn>Yeah, I mean, thi this came up, I had a conversation with Kevin Li.

00:37:44.027 --> 00:37:48.231
<v Simone Fishburn>It also came up on, on the panel, the scene setter panel.

00:37:48.331 --> 00:37:56.474
<v Simone Fishburn>And so definitely this generation, I'm gonna call it our generation, you know, in China, those, those folks, it, it was standard to go to the U.S.

00:37:57.173 --> 00:38:02.913
<v Simone Fishburn>get your training, get your credibility, and come, and you, you know, those people then came back to China and that's been the mantra.

00:38:02.913 --> 00:38:04.282
<v Simone Fishburn>In fact, that's been the mantra globally.

00:38:04.447 --> 00:38:07.184
<v Simone Fishburn>It was the mantra in the U.K. and, and Europe as well.

00:38:07.550 --> 00:38:13.224
<v Simone Fishburn>And what I'm hearing is that this emerging generation in China.

00:38:13.490 --> 00:38:18.561
<v Simone Fishburn>Of, you know, maybe the next leaders, they don't feel that they have to go to the U.S.

00:38:18.695 --> 00:38:20.731
<v Simone Fishburn>in order to get the training.

00:38:20.731 --> 00:38:26.269
<v Simone Fishburn>And I think, Matt, you made the point earlier when we talked that they may still get the training of how things are done.

00:38:26.469 --> 00:38:34.577
<v Simone Fishburn>Now in China by working from MNCs inside China and or as you point Jeff, working for people who've done that.

00:38:34.711 --> 00:38:40.518
<v Simone Fishburn>The point that I was making was that that generation doesn't feel the need to go to the U.S.

00:38:40.650 --> 00:38:51.762
<v Simone Fishburn>They'll be more domestically generated, you know, talent and the analogy was like, there was Genentech, and then Genentech spawned a whole number of, uh, you know, other companies.

00:38:51.762 --> 00:38:53.530
<v Simone Fishburn>Matt looks like you wanna respond to that.

00:38:53.597 --> 00:38:53.764
<v Matthew Hewitt>That.

00:38:53.764 --> 00:39:01.304
<v Matthew Hewitt>I mean, I, I, I'll probably like reiterate what I said this morning, which was that, I mean, to your story, Jeff, I mean, how did that fund find those people?

00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:05.509
<v Matthew Hewitt>They went to the people that trained in the U.S. I mean, that's the starting point,

00:39:05.543 --> 00:39:05.643
<v Jeff Cranmer>Right.

00:39:05.643 --> 00:39:07.010
<v Matthew Hewitt>and it's not to say that.

00:39:07.677 --> 00:39:16.554
<v Matthew Hewitt>I mean, it's gonna evolve from that point, but the starting point remains that the only way they're finding those people is by finding the people that went and trained in the U.S. and came back.

00:39:17.188 --> 00:39:20.557
<v Matthew Hewitt>So if we start from that anchor, if you will.

00:39:20.925 --> 00:39:29.266
<v Matthew Hewitt>Then certainly you can iterate upon that and then, you know, there's gonna be subsequent, generations so to speak of talent that are, don't need to then go to the U.S.

00:39:29.266 --> 00:39:31.635
<v Matthew Hewitt>but have the pedigree of training under our folks.

00:39:31.635 --> 00:39:37.273
<v Matthew Hewitt>And I think coming to back to  John's point around, taking more global outlook as a Chinese biotech.

00:39:37.708 --> 00:39:41.978
<v Matthew Hewitt>I mean, to me that happens from this first generation of talent that trained in the U.S.

00:39:41.978 --> 00:39:48.184
<v Matthew Hewitt>came back, has the experience of global, commercialization versus local commercialization.

00:39:48.485 --> 00:39:53.023
<v Matthew Hewitt>And if you look at a lot of the U.S. biotechs, like I said before, I mean, I'll say the reason why a lot of those U.S.

00:39:53.023 --> 00:40:01.565
<v Matthew Hewitt>biotechs focus on U.S. only, is it because a lot of times those folks only know how to commercialize in the U.S. They don't necessarily know how to commercialize in China.

00:40:01.632 --> 00:40:03.367
<v Matthew Hewitt>They don't know how to commercialize in Japan.

00:40:03.733 --> 00:40:05.536
<v Matthew Hewitt>Korea anywhere here in APAC.

00:40:05.902 --> 00:40:13.376
<v Matthew Hewitt>So, I mean, I think it gives U.S. a kind of a, a really good, uh, legitimacy to the Chinese biotech scene that they've got a more global outlook on the talent.

00:40:14.177 --> 00:40:15.679
<v Simone Fishburn>Can we get your thoughts on this as well?

00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:16.713
<v Simone Fishburn>You know, running a company?

00:40:16.713 --> 00:40:16.780
<v Simone Fishburn>Yeah.

00:40:16.780 --> 00:40:17.715
<v Simone Fishburn>And what are you seeing?

00:40:18.181 --> 00:40:19.717
<v Bing Wang>Well, we definitely see a mix, right?

00:40:19.717 --> 00:40:25.188
<v Bing Wang>So at Akeso, a lot of the, the senior management have, you know, overseas experience, you know, myself included, but.

00:40:25.922 --> 00:40:36.099
<v Bing Wang>I would say the next layer down, right, the VPs and the directors are, are all mostly domestic, talent and trained some of them at other China biotechs, some of them at multinationals.

00:40:36.132 --> 00:40:43.206
<v Bing Wang>Um, I think, uh, a, a lot of our folks in CMC manufacturing, for example, worked at, you know, the multinationals in China.

00:40:43.641 --> 00:40:46.943
<v Bing Wang>Because those, you actually need to know best in class western processes.

00:40:47.244 --> 00:40:57.320
<v Bing Wang>So I think we definitely seen, seen that trend in, in, in the next few years as, as these folks get more experience, you know, they'll move into senior management, you know, uh, position and then becoming some of the C-suite.

00:40:57.320 --> 00:40:58.422
<v Bing Wang>We're already seeing a lot of that.

00:40:58.889 --> 00:41:16.840
<v Bing Wang>But I think one point, one of the kind of highlight, adjacent to this topic is, I think the best quote that I heard for the last few days came from George Chen, from D3 . He said, you only start a biotech if you fundamentally want to come up and, and develop a drug to save humanity.

00:41:17.007 --> 00:41:18.509
<v Bing Wang>That's the only reason to do it.

00:41:18.775 --> 00:41:22.847
<v Bing Wang>So I think I wanna bring this back and that, and all the topic about talents.

00:41:22.947 --> 00:41:25.282
<v Bing Wang>I mean, we can't forget the entrepreneurs, right?

00:41:25.615 --> 00:41:29.753
<v Bing Wang>I mean, you think about Michelle, Michelle Xia, our CEO and, and Co-Founder, right.

00:41:29.753 --> 00:41:35.226
<v Bing Wang>She, basically with her three other Co-Founder's willed, Akeso and Ivonescimab into existence.

00:41:35.458 --> 00:41:36.460
<v Bing Wang>I mean, look at John, right.

00:41:36.460 --> 00:41:44.101
<v Bing Wang>It's, I would say you have to give a lot of the credit to the entrepreneurs just like in the West, that actually will these companies, into existence.

00:41:44.668 --> 00:41:46.769
<v Jeff Cranmer>Alright, well, we're up on time.

00:41:46.769 --> 00:41:47.972
<v Jeff Cranmer>I, Josh is sort of.

00:41:48.639 --> 00:41:51.509
<v Jeff Cranmer>the man who brought all this together, Josh, uh, parting thought.

00:41:51.708 --> 00:41:56.514
<v Josh Berlin>Yeah, I mean, first off, just wanted to thank everyone, uh, for coming out this week, uh, to the China summit.

00:41:56.514 --> 00:41:59.016
<v Josh Berlin>You know, I thought the energy was just infectious.

00:41:59.016 --> 00:42:00.050
<v Josh Berlin>It was, it was amazing.

00:42:00.050 --> 00:42:09.960
<v Josh Berlin>So, really appreciate everybody bringing the ever energy, the partnering, the, the hallway discussions, and all the great discussions on stage as well.

00:42:10.360 --> 00:42:16.400
<v Josh Berlin>And, we would very much, love to have you guys back next year when we come for our 13th China Healthcare Summit.

00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:25.409
<v Josh Berlin>we'll also be, in Asia again in March, BioCentury-BayHelix and McKinsey with our 5th East-West Summit, in Seoul, Korea.

00:42:25.409 --> 00:42:33.983
<v Josh Berlin>So we, uh, very much hope to see everybody at that event as well,'cause we think there's a lot of opportunities, um, across Asia that are starting to emerge now.

00:42:34.918 --> 00:42:50.034
<v Jeff Cranmer>And I'd very much like to thank, Matt Hewitt, VP and CTO of Charles Rivers Manufacturing Business Division, John Zu,  CEO of Duality Biologics, and Bing Wang, CFO of Akeso.

00:42:50.733 --> 00:42:52.335
<v Jeff Cranmer>Simone, of course.

00:42:52.335 --> 00:42:54.070
<v Jeff Cranmer>And Josh as ever.

00:42:54.170 --> 00:43:00.010
<v Jeff Cranmer>And thank all of you for listening in we hope that you, uh, tune into our podcast.

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<v Jeff Cranmer>Like it, subscribe to it, and for our listeners around the world, we will catch you next Monday with a new episode of the BioCentury This Week podcast.