Interview with Dr. Zhao Zijian-Do not forget your initiative mind, a scientist and entrepreneur dedicated to the development of innovative anti-tumor drugs
Dr. Zhao Zijian
founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Huajin Pharmaceutical;
Guangdong Province"Pearl River Talent Plan" innovation and entrepreneurship team leader;
former chief scientist of the "973" project of the Ministry of Science and Technology;
was a tenured professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Pittsburgh Medical College. He has been responsible for many project reviewers such as NIH in the United States and Welcome Trust in the United Kingdom. The research results were Neuroscience in Nature series Nature as the first author or corresponding author. Nature Medicine), published in high-level magazines such as Neuron, PNAS,GUT,JCI,Diabetes and JBC, has rich experience in starting a business in the pharmaceutical industry.
Huajin Pharmaceuticals recently completed a pre-B round of financing of tens of millions of dollars, which was led by stable assets. On this occasion, Wenzheng Asset interviewed Dr. Zhao Zijian, chairman of Huajin Pharmaceutical, to bring you to understand Huajin Pharmaceutical, the world's first drug development enterprise of oncolytic bacteria based on amino acid metabolism regulation mechanism.
diagram1 Huajin Medical Front Gate
painstaking study, the initial heart does not change, is committed to bringing good news to patients with advanced malignant tumors.
in the interview, we learned that Dr. Zhao Zijian received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Peking University as early as 1984 and a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Southern California in 1992. Before returning to China to start his own business, he was already a tenured professor in the Department of Cell and Physiology at the University of Pittsburgh. For many years, Dr. Zhao has been focusing on the research of gene therapy, concentrating on the research and development of innovative drugs for tumor treatment, and is committed to bringing good news to patients with advanced malignant tumors. With such technology and original intention, Dr. Zhao resolutely decided to return to China to start a business.
According to Dr. Zhao, oncolytic bacteria drugs are new biotechnology developed for tumor treatment. In animal models and preliminary human treatment, it is found that these drugs can quickly dissolve tumors and liquefy solid tumors. According to this observation, Huajin Pharmaceutical R & D team put forward the concept of "oncolytic bacteria. The history of using bacteria to treat tumors in the world is very old, but the concept of "oncolytic bacteria" has not really been put forward in foreign clinical trials, and only two domestic pharmaceutical companies, including Huajin Pharmaceutical, have entered the clinical trial stage.
100 billion industrial scale, the next three years to meet the explosive growth
Due to the unique technical advantages of oncolytic bacteria drugs, especially the significant efficacy of a wide range of solid tumors, Dr. Zhao believes that the market size of oncolytic bacteria drugs will reach hundreds of billions or even trillions. Through a relatively simple numerical calculation, we can draw this conclusion: at present, there are about 20 million cancer patients in our country. If only 20% tumor treatment is penetrated, the market share will reach 200 billions or 300 billions yuan.
In the next three years, with the gradual publication of clinical trial results of oncolytic bacteria, Huajin Pharmaceutical will play a leading role in the world, attracting more and more Big Pharma and Biotech companies to join this field and actively research and development layout. It is expected that the entire bacterial drug industry will usher in explosive growth in the next three years, and continue to upgrade and transform, and the entire industry has unlimited potential.
Dr. Zhao said frankly: As a bacterial treatment for tumors, Huajin Medicine was developed on the shoulders of giants. It has gradually established the world's leading broad-spectrum oncolytic bacteria technology platform. SGN1, the first core product, has also obtained 2 IND approvals from FDA and started Phase I/IIa clinical trials for various malignant solid tumors in the United States. From these perspectives, there is no doubt that Huajin Pharmaceutical is in a leading position on a global scale.
Excellent team and leading products are the solid foundation and core competitiveness of Huajin Pharmaceutical's development.
diagram2 Huajin Medical Team Photo
Huajin Pharmaceutical is reflected in the following two aspects: First, the team strength of Huajin Pharmaceutical is strong. The chairman, Dr. Zhao Zijian, is the leader of the innovation and entrepreneurship team of the "Pearl River Talent Program" in Guangdong Province. The other two founding experts are also in Senior experience in the field of industry and basic research. At the same time, Huajin Pharmaceutical also has excellent scientists and industry experts in drug research and development, industrial preparation, registration and clinical trials. Together, they form an important cornerstone for the steady development of Huajin Pharmaceutical. Having such an excellent professional team also makes Dr. Zhao feel proud.
Huajin Medicine is the self-developed SGN1 (SalMet-Vec), which is the world's first genetically engineered biological product that can accurately target and rapidly dissolve tumors in clinical trials. SGN1 carries specific methionine hydrolase through an attenuated Salmonella vector, depriving tumors of essential amino acids needed for tumor growth, thereby killing tumors and preventing tumor spread. Huajin Pharmaceutical owns the complete intellectual property rights and global rights of SGN1. It has applied for nearly 50 PCT and invention patents in various countries around the world and obtained 18 authorizations. Through the clinical trial (IIT) initiated by researchers in many hospitals in China, SGN1 has shown significant clinical efficacy and good safety in the treatment of liver cancer, lung cancer, sarcoma, melanoma, nasopharyngeal cancer, cervical cancer and other malignant tumors.
At the same time, SGN1 is a broad-spectrum anti-tumor drug in the true sense. According to Dr. Zhao, no solid tumor boundary that it cannot treat has been found so far, and it does not care about various gene mutation types of tumors at all, because it uses the basis of tumor dependence on amino acids as the core target for development. Technology, and can quickly trigger internal reactions in tumors. No unresponsive tumor types have been seen in current preclinical trials, these characteristics determine that the application scenarios of SGN1 will be very extensive.
SGN1 has active tumor targeting and will bring a new solution to the treatment of malignant tumors.
diagram3 SGN1 Targeting Tumor, Endogenously Expressing Methionine Enzymes
the target of oncolytic bacteria drugs is the relatively mature oncolytic virus technology in the market. There are many oncolytic virus technology development companies in the United States and China. This track is very crowded, but the oncolytic virus drugs that really enter the market for approval are only single digits. Therefore, Huajin Pharmaceuticals has pioneered the oncolytic bacterial drug SGN1 from the original crowded track, and has a unique and strong advantage over oncolytic viral drugs.
First of all, SGN1 dissolves the tumor very quickly. After two or three injections, it can achieve the effect of rapidly dissolving the tumor. A course of treatment is about one month, while the injection of oncolytic virus drugs is often three to six months, repeated injections, and It has to be combined with other drugs. The second point is that most of the oncolytic virus technologies currently developed require intratumoral injection, and many tumors are not superficial, but in the middle of deep organs in the body, and even have metastases in multiple organs. As a result, it is difficult to achieve intratumoral injection for each tumor. Unlike oncolytic viruses, SGN1 can be injected intratumor or administered intravenously, and the two can be combined to achieve the goal of efficient treatment of tumors.
the last point is that on the basis of intravenous administration, SGN1 can have a strong ability to target tumors after entering the blood, which is determined by the characteristics of the bacteria. The flagella of the bacteria itself can promote the bacteria to swim in the blood and actively look for nutrients to target the tumor. The targeting of SGN1 in the tumor tissue has reached thousands or even tens of thousands of times, which is far from the oncolytic virus drugs. Dr. Zhao firmly believes that as SGN1 proceeds to the clinic and begins to show its charm, it will have a powerful impact on oncolytic virus technology.
After entering the clinical phase II, SGN1 will carry out trials for some clinical applicable diseases with limited therapeutic effects in the field of malignant tumors, such as small cell lung cancer, liver cancer, head and neck cancer and osteosarcoma. Through intratumoral injection and intravenous injection, Dr. Zhao predicts that SGN1 will have a good response rate and therapeutic effect on these four types of tumors, this confidence is derived from the solid pre-clinical research conducted by the Huajin Medical team and the clinical efficacy seen in the treatment of patients participating in the IIT trial. Of course, as a broad-spectrum anti-tumor drug, SGN1 will also carry out clinical trials for other solid tumors, such as bladder cancer, melanoma and a series of tumors.
diagram4 SGN1 Injection
future, with SGN1 taking the lead in achieving breakthroughs in malignant tumors with a relatively small number of patients and a temporary lack of good treatment (such as clinical phase II showing good treatment results),SGN1 will officially open its way to market. At present, Huajin Medicine is also actively preparing to apply to FDA for SGN1 orphan drug qualification, and make full use of FDA's breakthrough policy and regulatory advantages, and strive to obtain NDA approval for the first indication of SGN1 in the next two to three years. Dr. Zhao said that the target time for SGN1 to go on sale is around 2025.
Using SGN1 as the core drug to create a technology platform for expanding clinical indications for a variety of solid tumors
In view of the broad-spectrum anti-tumor properties of SGN1, Huajin Medicine will focus on rapidly expanding the use of SGN1 in different tumor indications. In this sense, SGN1 is not so much a drug as a technology platform to continuously expand its clinical indications for a variety of solid tumors, and Dr. Zhao is very confident that the response rate of SGN1 in clinical trials will be much higher than that of other anti-tumor drugs.
At the same time, Huajin Medicine has also actively developed a second-generation product SGN2 (Zhenmewick, GenMet-Vec) for the treatment of glioma, which uses viral vectors to carry methioninase for intracranial injection and shows dose-dependent inhibition of glioma cells in clinical studies. As Huajin Pharmaceuticals moves towards the capital market, Dr. Zhao's team is still seeking new technologies for malignant tumors and other clinically incurable indications, and is also trying to extend these technologies to the company's product line.
In response to this round of financing, Dr. Zhao said: "Thank you very much for the support of this round of investors, Wenzheng Assets, Classmate Village Capital, Sheno Investment and Huarui Fund. We are also very grateful for the strong support that Share Investment has given us since the Angel Wheel, and for the courage of CICC Capital to take the lead while we were still waiting for the approval of clinical trials in the United States. There is no doubt that the deep empowerment of stable assets and firm confidence in the development of the enterprise are crucial to the success of this financing. This round of financing funds will be mainly used to accelerate the clinical trials of SGN1 in several advanced malignant solid tumors and to promote the development of new products. SGN1 will open up a new therapeutic field of tumor-targeted amino acid metabolic pathway regulation therapy, bringing new solutions to the treatment of malignant tumors.
