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ImmunoChina CEO talks CAR-T cell therapy for solid tumors

? ImmunoChina aims to develop CAR-T cell therapies that treat both blood cancers and solid tumors.

? To treat solid tumors more complicated modifications to the T-cell, a type of white blood cell, is required.

? CAR-T cell therapies in China are expected to be priced lower than in the U.S.

Ting He started up ImmunoChina Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. in 2015 after getting his doctorate in life sciences from China's Tsinghua University. He, and his two partners from the same university, decided to develop chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, or CAR-T, therapies for treating cancers. The therapy works by re-engineering a patient's own immune cells to kill cancer cells. In January, the biotech startup announced a collaboration agreement with Harbour BioMed to develop the next generation of CAR-T cell therapies.

At an industry conference in Beijing, S&P Global Market Intelligence spoke to He about the challenges of developing CAR-T cell therapies for the Chinese market and for solid tumors. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

S&P Global Market Intelligence: How did you establish a partnership with Harbour BioMed to develop CAR-T cell therapies?

Ting He: We share the same investor in Legend Capital, a leading investment group in the pharma sector, and this connection makes it easy for us to build mutual trust in our technologies. We need their antibody discovery platform and they are also interested in the future of CAR-T cell therapies in cancer, so it was very natural for us to collaborate. Now, we have several molecules in early stage development for treating liquid cancers and solid tumors.

SNL Image

Ting He

Source: ImmunoChina

CAR-T cell therapies have shown to be effective against liquid cancers, but are still unproven for solid tumors. Do you think the therapy can work in solid tumor cancers?

I think CAR-T cell therapies will have better efficacy for late-stage solid tumors compared with current treatment strategies. However, they will likely remain more effective at treating liquid cancers like leukemia. Solid tumors have a very special microenvironment and it's not that easy to make CAR-T cells that can fully infiltrate into the tumor to exhibit their antitumor function.

What are the challenges in treating solid tumors?

The biggest challenge is how to overcome the immunosuppressive microenvironment of the solid tumor. We need to strengthen the ability of the CAR-T cells to exhibit their efficacy in these special environments. That will probably mean more complicated genetic modifications to the T-cell. I think there are a few very promising ways to accomplish that, and we need time and a lot of experiments to test it, but I think the future is bright.

How will China's drug pricing policy impact your development strategy?

Obviously, a CAR-T cell therapy is going to be expensive. We are hoping we can develop something not very expensive but still with high efficacy and better safety. I believe the government will keep the price of such innovative drugs within a reasonable range. In the long run, it is the best for both the industry and healthcare reimbursement of citizens.

In the U.S., Novartis AG' CAR-T treatment Kymriah costs $475,000 per treatment, while Kite Pharma Inc.'s Yescarta costs around $373,000. According to Chinese financial publication Yicai, China's CAR-T cell therapies can cost as low as 100,000 yuan in three years. Is this realistic?

I think 100,000 yuan is a very low price. I think it's very difficult if we're competing with Novartis and Kite's products. But I believe the pricing of CAR-T cell therapy in China will be significantly lower than in the U.S. I think a few hundred thousand yuan would be an acceptable range. For cancer drugs like Rituxan or Gleevec, the treatment cost per year in China can be a bit high. For CAR-T cell therapy, because it has very high efficacy and is a one-time treatment, compared to the annual cost of other treatments, the price is reasonable.

What is driving the growing investor interest in China's healthcare and pharmaceutical sector, especially in oncology?

One of the main reasons this space has become popular is that China's drug research in cancer is starting to pick up. Ten years ago, China's innovative drug development industry was very small. There were very few companies developing innovative cancer drugs at the time, so there were no good targets for venture capitalists to invest in. Now, many scientists are coming back from overseas to start or lead domestic companies doing more research and development. Overall, China is improving its entrepreneurial environment, economic development and standard of living.

Do you have plans to expand your pipeline?

We are very interested in in-licensing or out-licensing products as long as the products are based on gene or cellular technology. For now, we only develop CAR-T technologies and related products. There has been interest from both domestic and overseas companies. While domestic companies are easier to get in touch with, we also have ongoing talks with foreign biotech companies. We are probably going to announce a few collaborations later this year.

As of Feb. 5, US$1 was equivalent to 6.29 yuan.