China in Africa

Nine pharmaceutical companies such as JW Therapeutics, Fosun Kite, Carsgen Therapeutics, HRAIN Biotechnology, Genor Biopharma and others have officially established the Shanghai Alliance for Immune Cell Therapy Industry. The Shanghai Biomedicine Science and Technology Industry Promotion Center will actively promote the development of a cell therapy industry, increase R&D funding and policy support efforts for CAR-T to benefit more patients as soon as possible. In December 2016, the CFDA released Guiding Principles for Research and Evaluation of Cell Products” (Draft for Comment). At present, the regulatory authorities are revising the guiding principles according to the feedback and are expected to release the implementation within 2017. An acceptable price for therapy in China would be around 100,000 Yuan, well below the prizes presently seen in the USA (400 – 500 k$).”

China Bio news release, December 1, 2017

I-MAB, a Shanghai-based startup has agreed with MorphoSys on the exclusive development and commercialization of MOR202 in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. The investigational drug MOR202 is a human HuCAL antibody directed against the CD38 target. Scientifically proven, CD38 is a highly expressed target protein in multiple myeloma. In addition to the treatment of multiple myeloma, studies have found that CD38 antibodies have a therapeutic effect on a variety of solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. MorphoSys is completing Phase 1 / 2a clinical studies of MOR202 in Germany and Austria.

China Bio news release, December 2, 2017

On average, there were 4 IPO per month, and nearly 90 % of the companies had VC/PE support. The original investment period of 8-10 years was reduced to about 3-5 years. Total funds raised reached over 200 billion yuan.

China Bio news release, November 30, 2017

A biomedical engineer by education, Tao XU is presently Director of the Innovation Center of Instruments and Technologies for Life Sciences at CAS Beijing Institute of Life Sciences. His focus is on membrane and vesicle transport. Born in May 1970, he was a postdoc with Erwin Neher at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and with Bertil Hille at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Washington University. In 1999, he returned to Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan where he had studied, and transferred to Beijing in 2009. On Nov. 27, 2017, Tao XU was appointed member of the CAS, together with 66 other scientists and engineers.

China Bio news release, November 30, 2017

Cyanobacteria such as Synechococcus sp. PCC 7942 overproduce sucrose to achieve osmotolerance in saline solution. The teams around Xuefeng LU and Quan LUO at CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT), in collaboration with Martin Hagemann at Rostock University, Germany, identified protein Slr1588 as a transcriptional regulator for sucrase activity of the spsA gene, a key enzyme involved in sucrose synthesis and found that glycogen and sucrose pools were closely linked. Their results suggest that glycogen could serve as a supportive rather than a competitive carbon pool for the synthesis of sucrose, and could guide metabolic engineering to optimize the production of sucrose and other products by cyanobacteria.

CAS QIBEBT news release, November 27, 2017

According to a CFDA law amendment brought to congress vote, certification of drugs in China might be simplified in the future: 1. permission for manufacture and GMP certificate will be combined in one certificate, and 2. permission for storage (GSP = good storage practice certificate) and sales will also be combined in another certificate. Thus, if approved by congress, GMP and GSP will in future be combined with manufacturing and sales certificate (information by XIONG Xin)

China Bio news release, November 29, 2017

Using algae such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Nannochloropsis and others, the group of Jian XU at CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioproess Technology (QIBEBT) has succeeded to quantify, label-free, the amount of starch, protein and triacylglycerol in single microalgal cells. Analysis is based on 13 specific Raman peaks. It works under high throughput and from different cell preservation states such as liquid suspension cultures, thawed wet algae preserved at -80 ° C and freeze-dried algal flour.

China Industrial Biotechnology Network, November 23, 2017

Hainan Airlines flight HU497 departed from Beijing Capital Airport on Nov. 21 and landed 11 hrs later at Chicago O’Hare in the USA. It carried 186 passengers and 15 crew members. The biofuel used (Sinopec No. 1 jet fuel) was processed from coconut, palm, Jatropha, linseed and other vegetable oils, as well as from microalgae oil, cooking oil and animal fat, and approved by CAAC. China at present consumes about 30 million tons of aviation fuel and strives to drop the average annual energy consumption per unit passenger by more than 15% by 2020.

China Industrial Biotechnology Network, November 22, 2017

The robot developed by Regenerative Medicine Technology Co. consists of a compact body and a flat panel display. The user first scans the QR code at the top of the display to connect to the enterprise public number, then affixes the right hand to the body, and the robot begins to measure pulse. After 2 minutes, the screen generates a medical report, automatically sent to the user’s mobile phone. 8.6 for organs and 8.4 for digestion …” The report provides scores up to 10 for each of the body’s physiological systems. In a drop-down menu, the medical report also details the user’s health status of each organ, profile, conditioning advice. Even dry eyes and other small problems are “found” by intelligent robots. The robot collects bioelectric data from pulse points, and generates the medical report based on big data analysis based on the clinical data of 280,000 people. Accuracy is said to be 94%. The company will attempt to combine this analysis with the „500 TCM treatments“ of the Chinese pharmacopoeia.”

China Bio news release, November 23, 2017

The genus Allium (Liliaceae) contains hundreds of species, including onion, garlic, scallion, shallot, leek, and chives, many of them have the smell of garlic and are economically important as crops, medicinal or ornamental plants. The majority of over 500 Allium species are native to the Northern Hemisphere, while a few species are distribute in tropical and subtropical regions. The Global Allium Garden will be composed of a Kunming Center and a Tashkent Center. The Kunming Botanical Garden, KIB, covers an area of 3,700 square meters (5.5 acres) and is designed in line with circumstances to create a natural type landscape.

CAS news release, November 23, 2017

The map is based on recordings in 2015 and has a resolution of 30 m by 30 m per pixel, 100 times clearer than the 300 m by 300 m per pixel resolution of landsat. The map documents that forests, grasslands and desert cover more than 82 % of the area earmarked for the Belt and Road Initiative, making it difficult to build connecting roads. It also found pockets of water reserves along the initiative, yet some of them are overused for agriculture, meaning the initiative has a potential risk of water shortages and environmental degradation. As for solar energy, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran’s plateaus, the Sahara, and central Australia are prime locations for large-scale solar farms. India, Southeast Asia and southeastern China are less favorable, despite having warm climates, because of dense vegetation, cloud coverage and a mediocre solar exposure rate. Next year, China will publish greenhouse gas data collected from the recently launched Fengyun 3D meteorological satellite, contributing more to the global effort in combating climate change.

CAS news release, November 22, 2017

A review on imminent changes includes:
1. A „two vote“ system for instruments and consumables,
2. Policy support for home-made instruments,
3. Outpatient services will be improved,
4. County-level hospitals will be upgraded,
5. Genetic screening will be reformed

14 more major changes are mentioned in this review.

China Bio news release, November 21, 2017

The group of ZHOU Gongke at QIBEBT has used molecular biology, cell biology and bioinformatics and other research methods to elucidate the molecular biology of cadmium ion absorption, transport and detoxification in duckweed. The advantage of duckweed bioremediation is that: (1) new individuals are produced mainly through asexual reproduction, with fast growth rate and short cycle, breeding about 2-3 days; (2) the overall structure is simple and large part of the duckweed is composed of only the fronds and roots, which can absorb metal ions in the water, avoiding the long-distance transport of ions, thus improving the ion transport efficiency. Future work will be devoted to establish duckweed as a new bioremediation and energy plant.

China Bio news release, November 17, 2017

As a leading enterprise in China’s genetic testing industry, BGI combines strong R & D self-developed instruments and reagents to effectively control costs. The rapid growth of the reproductive and health businesses has formed a scale effect and BGI is active in such promising fields as complex diseases and drug research and development. Operating income for Jan. to Sept. 2017 was 1.447 billion yuan, an increase of 15 %, and net profits rose by 21 % to 312 million yuan. China’s genetic sequencing market size was 5.4 billion yuan in 2016 and is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan in 2020. The global genetic testing market was estimated at 20 billion US dollars in 2016.

China Bio news release, November 15, 2017

According to a national liver cancer clinical registration survey, 83 % of patients were male, and infection (58 %) and/or alcohol consumption was the main cause of disease.

China Bio news release, November 14, 2017