On November 1, 2018, Shanghai Henlius Biotech, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "Henlius") and the Korean company AbClon, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "AbClon") held a signing ceremony, Mr. Jiemin Fu, Chairman of Henlius, Dr. Weidong Jiang, co-founder, Chief Science Officer of Henlius, Mr. Kyu-Tae KIM and Mr. Young-Ku LEE from AbClon attended this signing ceremony. The two parties have signed an amendment agreement on the monoclonal antibody AC101. Under the agreement, Henlius will exercise the option to secure rights to develop and commercialize the medicine in the world.
On October 27, 2016, Henlius signed a license agreement with AbClon, being granted the intellectual property and commercial rights of AC101 in China (including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao). Henlius may carry out the development, production, use, sale, offer sale, import and export and other commercial activities of the medicine in any indication field including gastric cancer and breast cancer.
Dr. Scott Liu, co-founder, President and chief executive officer of Henlius said, "AC101 has very good development prospects, and is also of great significance for the implementation of Henlius’ globalization strategy. With the vision of providing all patients with high-quality and affordable protein therapeutics, Henlius will continue leveraging our mature product portfolio to develop better treatments.
Dr. Weidong Jiang, co-founder and chief science officer of Henlius also commented, “In recent years, Henlius is committed to research and development of new products, constantly enriching the company’s product pipeline. At the same time, Henlius has achieved strategic cooperation with a number of well-known global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to jointly discover and develop effective treatment for patients with high-quality biological medicine."
“We are excited to reach further consensus with Henlius on the basis of the original cooperation, and look forward to more cooperation opportunities with Henlius in the future”, said Dr. Lee Jong-Seo, chief executive officer of AbClon.
About AC101
AC101 targeting human epidermal growth factor, is a humanized lgG1 monoclonal antibody injection introduced by Henlius from AbClon. It is the first novel monoclonal antibody discovered by AbClon using Novel Epitope Screening Technology (NEST), a proprietary antibody research and development platform. At present, AC101 is in the pre-clinical research stage, and can be used for the treatment of HER2-positive gastric cancer or breast cancer in the future.
About AbClon
AbClon Inc., based in Seoul, Korea, has been dedicated to the research, development of new antibody drugs. The company has established two platforms, Novel Epitope Screening Technology (NEST) and monoclonal antibody platform (AffiMab), to accelerate the discovery and development of innovative antibody therapeutics.
About Henlius
Shanghai Henlius Biotech, Inc., a joint venture company co-founded by Fosun Pharma and a team of overseas scientists in December 2009, with its R&D footprint in Shanghai, Taipei and California, USA, specializes in the discovery, development, manufacturing and commercialization of high-quality biologics including biosimilar, biobetter and bio-novel monoclonal antibody, to treat tumor and autoimmune diseases.
As of today, Henlius has completed IND/CTA filings of 12 products and 1 combination immuno-oncology therapy with 20 indications and obtained 27 successful IND/CTA fillings (17 approvals from mainland China; 3 from Taiwan; 3 from United States, and 1 each from the European Union, Ukraine, the Philippines and Australia).