CBA 2020 San Francisco Conference Successfully Concluded

Technology Commercialization in Biopharmaceutical and Healthcare

Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association – USA successfully held the first joint conference with Chinese Bioscience Association (CBA San Francisco Chapter) in the theme of “Technology Commercialization in Biopharma and Healthcare” in San Francisco, USA on January 12, 2020. The invited CBA speakers from China and US delivered fantastic speeches. The venue was full-filled, and the guests have enjoyed this unique opportunity to exchange ideas and communicate and network each other in person. The conference includes three sessions: CBA Entrepreneurs in Action, Dialogue with Investors, and Recent Regulatory Updates and Case Studies in the US and China.

Opening Remark

The current president, Dr. Chuanhua Julia Xing delivered an opening remark. Dr. Xing first introduced the glorious tradition of CBA in innovation and entrepreneurship. Many CBA former presidents and members established their own companies. More than 10 CBA former presidents and entrepreneurs participated in this meeting. Many of them are leaders and have IPO companies in the biomedical industry, representing the internationally highest level in innovation and entrepreneurship. The conference is the first joint meeting held by the two coasts of the CBA in the US. CBA’s representative companies will give a remarkable tour,  supplemented with representative investment capitals and the latest regulations. Then Dr. Xing briefly introduced the history and recent achievements of CBA. CBA was founded 25 years ago in Maryland, with more than 8,000 members now and more than 80% of them having a doctorate degree. It is one of the leading groups in the Chinese science and technology community, has flourished in innovation and entrepreneurship recent years. The CBA-San Francisco Chapter was formulated with the Chinese Bioscience Association in 2017. There are also a few milestones in development in last year: the CBA-Canadian Chapter, CBA – Hangzhou office and the CBA Clinical and Regulatory Affairs Study Group (CCRA) were established, the precision medicine and biomarker group successfully hold the first symposium, and the 2019 annual conference at the Guangzhou jointly with the China Bio-industry Conference was one of the influential events in biopharma and healthcare industry in 2019.

Dr. Dannis Chang, PharmD, President of Chinese Bioscience Association 2020, delivered an inspiring speech about the mission, vision and the current activities of the organization.  Chinese Bioscience Association was founded in 1997 in the heart of San Francisco, and currently has 1000+ active members ranging from C-suites, founders, business executives, professors, scientists, post-docs and college students. Throughout the presentation, Dr. Chang walked the audience through the history of Chinese Bioscience Association with a dedicated goal to bridge the knowledge and cultural gaps in the healthcare across the globe by building and fostering upon strong partnerships from an educational perspective with various organizations in the life sciences arena. He also showcased the successful milestones that took place in 2019. The October Annual Conference, themed “From Disruptive Innovations to Real World Clinical Applications”, had attracted more than 300 attendees from all over the world. The outstanding workshops and symposiums with various topics such as CNS Drug development, CRISPR, gene therapy, Artificial Intelligence, Regulatory Considerations in Drug Development, made this event a great success. The Annual Summer Picnic for members to socialize was a blast as always. All the future events are update on the website: www.cbasf.org. Dr. Chang also thanked for the joint conference and would like to keep it as a tradition to distribute the spirit of innovation and science from San Francisco to the whole field.

PART 1 CBA pro-active entrepreneurs

VIP Host: Guo-Liang Yu, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO, Apollomics, Inc.

Dr. Guo-Liang Yu reviewed the history of CBA as the founder of the association and shared his brilliant experiences as an entrepreneur. From a group of elites to more than 8000 members, he can’t imagine that after 25 years, CBA has a high reputation in delivering powerful influence internationally now in innovation, entrepreneurship and scientific communication, etc.. Dr. Yu is also a mentor to entrepreneurs. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and then a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. He has set up and invested in many start-up companies. Now he is the Chairman of both Apollomics and InnoForce.

VIP Speaker: Yuling Li, Ph.D., CEO, InnoForce

Innoforce CEO and former CBA president, Dr. Yuling Li emphasized that the scientific discovery across the eastern and western pharmaceutical industry is very cutting-edge. Product development is particularly important and has exceptional opportunities. Innoforce starts from China and drives the value of producing high-quality medicines, combining the experience from East and West. There is already a lot of research in the scientific community, so the product development behind science is particularly important at this stage. Their wish is to provide efficient and affordable therapeutic products for Chinese people. They pay particular attention to product quality, cooperation and partnership, innovation and products, and business models adaptive to the local economy. The company was established in Hangzhou last year, growing at a rapid speed with an internationally leading team. Their goal is to become the best in Hangzhou and then in China.

VIP Speaker: Patrick Lu, Ph.D., Founder, President and CEO, Sirnaomics Inc.

Dr. Lu was the second president of CBA. He pointed out that CBA has always valued the importance of entrepreneurship and encouraged its members to become an entrepreneur and serve the common mission and vision. CBA enjoys a common philosophy, cultural background, and the development of technology and products to serve the community and patients. RNAi is a new and innovative technology in the field of biopharmaceuticals and has been able to drive the development of many clinical projects. Until now, there have been many molecular therapeutic companies based on RNAi. Sirnaomics was founded 13 years ago, with the research facilities in Suzhou and Guangzhou, and offices in Boston and Hong Kong, and headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The drug delivery system is the key to RNAi therapeutics. They focus on tumors therapy that would deliver the drugs to the liver and lungs.

VIP Speaker：Ziping Wei, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Bliss Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd

Dr. Wei was the president of CBA in 2014-2015. She shared her thoughts with the audience: According to statistics, the average age of entrepreneurs in biopharma is 55 years old. Successful entrepreneurs not only need passion, that is, choose the things they love to start a business; they also have a long-term perspective, considering many challenges and difficulties later. Successful entrepreneurs need to be determined and believe that they can do this and build a comprehensive and effective leadership team. Product safety is critical, and speed is vital without compromising quality. We are developing more products while raising funds too.

VIP Speaker: Stephen Turner, Ph.D., Founder and CTO, Pacific Biosciences, Inc.

Pacific Biosciences is of about 400 employees and located in Menlo Park, California. Dr. Turner is a founder of the company and co-inventor of the third generation of sequencing and is also an entrepreneur advisor to CBA. Stephen talked about how to build the gene tags and sequencer infrastructure step-by-step when the molecular detection technology was infant before 1997. Then they invented the most advanced single-molecule sequencing technology, SMRT sequencing. SMAT sequencing has the read more than ten times longer than that of Illumina’s platform, and therefore results in high accuracy in detecting various types of mutations. He also shared their road to commercialization.

Round Table Panel Discussion

Each guest participated in a Q & A session with the audience on entrepreneurship and fundraising.

PART 2 Dialogue with Investors

VIP Host：Sujuan Ba, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO for AIM-HI Accelerator Fund; CEO, National Foundation for Cancer Research & Asian Fund for Cancer Research

VIP Speaker： Lynn Yunxia Yang, General Manager, Sequoia Capital

The investment in medical and health care has continued to grow in China in the past six years,  the top VCs in China have invested in 37 companies, 60% of them are in biotechnology field including innovative drugs, medical services, digital medicine, medical devices, and genomic testing, etc.. Sequoia Capital China is involved in almost every type. The innovative drugs have attracted more capitals. The trend of biotechnology finance is that top investors and managers will communicate, recognize and attract each other. Demarginated technology is prevailing.

VIP Speaker: Zhe Li, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Partner, Proxima Ventures Ltd

There is a big gap between the Chinese and American healthcare industries. Chinese companies are actively introducing innovations from overseas, and China’s capital market has always provided opportunities for innovative companies. Proxima Ventures is committed to building a unique ecosystem to accelerate innovation, Proxima wants to establish multiple clinical applications for the leading hospitals, and to provide helpful assistance to the investment portfolios. For example, they are helping companies apply innovative technology to lung indicators, introducing oversea talents to the companies and entrepreneurs to develop globally innovative products.

VIP Speaker: Angel Huang, J.D., Shanghai Partner-in-charge and M&A Chair for Asia, Jones Day

In the Chinese market in 2019, the number of transactions has been growing, and biotechnology transactions have grown faster than before because of the active Chinese scientists in the United States. Investment in new areas back to the Mainland is continually increasing, and new open areas are expected to pass through foreign investment laws. 2020 prediction: transactions outside China are waiting for a direction and existence.

VIP Speaker: Lin Sun Hoffman, Ph.D., J.D., Founding Partner, Liu Chen & Hoffman LLP

Photo:  Dr. Hoffman is from Liu Chen & Hoffman LLP.  The firm mainly serves legal service in the area of intellectual property (IP), corporate law, cross-border investment, and contract, etc. The attorneys in the team have a diverse academic background and work experience. Dr. Sun Hoffman discussed issues and concerns during cross border collaborations

Chengmei Law Firm in the United States mainly serves laws about intellectual property (IP), company, cross-border investment, and contract, etc.. The lawyers in the team have a diverse academic background and work experience. Dr. Hoffman discussed the query of investment licenses. These include investment and Chinese license, IP, subordinate license, domains, asset ownership, alternating control power, and more.

VIP Speaker: Rose Wang, Strategic Advisor, AIM-HI Accelerator Fund

AIM-HI Accelerator Fund takes a new approach to invest in early-stage oncology startups. By establishing an evergreen investment ecosystem, a bridge has been built for the development of oncology drugs from discovery to clinical trials. They have established a new investment model: a combination of venture philanthropy (funded for a non-profit National Cancer Research Association for 46 years) and an influential investment to accelerate the development of innovative research on cancer.

Round Table Panel Discussion

The audience enthusiastically asked questions and actively interacted on the spot.

PART 3 New regulatory trends, case studies in China and the US

VIP Speaker: Ke Liu, M.D., Phd., Associate Director for Cell and Gene Therapy & Chief of Oncology Branch, CBER, FDA

Dr. Liu introduced several FDA accelerate approval approaches for macromolecules and anticancer drugs to ensure that patients can use new drugs as soon as possible, including Accelerated Approval (1992), Priority Review (1992), Fast Track (1997 ), Breakthrough Therapy (2012), and Regenerative Advanced Therapy (2016).

VIP Speaker: Dan Zhang, M.D., Founder and CEO, Fountain Medical Development Ltd.

China is a member of ICH (International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use). Dr. Zhang updated the latest status of ICH implementation in China and its impact on the global biopharmaceutical industry.

VIP Speaker: Xiaobin Victor Lu, Ph.D., Senior VP, Head of Regulatory Affairs, Innovative Cellular Therapeutics Inc.

VIP Speaker: Frank Li, PHD., Founder and CEO, BLA Regulatory

Round Table Panel Discussion

In the regulatory section, Dr. Frank Li specifically mentioned FDA-approved Brukins from BeiGene. Two studies were conducted for mantle cell lymphoma using 118 patients. About three-quarters are Asians, 21% of participants are white, and 10% to 15% are from the United States. The Ph-2 study is fully supported using Chinese clinical data to obtain accelerated FDA approval, which is a milestone for the approval of Chinese originated medicines in the United States. Dr. Ke Liu pointed out specially that this approval was important to support the efficacy and the clinical trials to confirm efficacy and safety after approval. Dr. Xiaobin Victor Lu also pointed out that the approval of Brukins will encourage Chinese pharmaceutical companies to continue the clinical trials in China, considering factors to meet the requirements of the FDA. The clinical trials in China help win approvals from both China and the US, and shorten the time for approval between the two countries.

Networking Distinguished guests ample networking among participants.

This conference acknowledged the sponsorship and support from Sirnaomics and Jones Day

Dr. Tamera Weisser, Head of Jones Day ’s Biopharmaceutical Intellectual Property Department, gave a welcome speech at the conference and introduced Jones Day ’s legal business achievements in the field of medicine.