HanchorBio and Henlius Announce Strategic Collaboration to Develop Innovative Immunotherapies

SHANGHAI, China & TAIPEI, Taiwan, August 28, 2023 (Newswire.com) - HanchorBio Inc., a global clinical-stage biotechnology company focusing on the discovery and development of innovative immuno-biomedicines, and Shanghai Henlius Biotech, Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company developing biologic medicines with a focus on oncology, autoimmune diseases, and ophthalmic diseases, today announced that the two companies have entered into a strategic framework agreement for collaboration to combine HanchorBio's protein engineering expertise and proprietary Fc-based designer biologics (FBDB™) technology platform with Henlius' integrated product development and commercialization capabilities. The collaboration aims to expand the application of each company's platform by developing novel cancer immunotherapies, including those tumors resistant to anti-PD-1/L1 immunotherapies, to accelerate their respective pipeline of innovative immunotherapy medicines.

"FBDB™-based innovative products may offer effective cancer immunotherapies to patients suffering from cancers which are resistant or refractory to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapies and having significant unmet medical needs on a global scale," said Scott Liu, Ph.D., Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of HanchorBio. "This collaboration represents a foundational recognition and investment in our platform science and capabilities, which strengthens our pipeline and accelerates our research to providing novel therapies to patients globally. We are thrilled to collaborate with Shanghai Henlius to jointly address the inadequacies of the current anti-PD-1/L1 therapies and to navigate new frontiers in immuno-oncology through the design and development of novel multi-functional modalities that synergistically modulate and re-engage immune systems to fight cancers."

Mr. Jason Zhu, Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chief Financial Officer of Henlius, said, "Henlius is dedicated to providing affordable and innovative biologics for patients around the world. Today, we have achieved great success in marketing 5 products to the global market. Focusing on unmet clinical needs, Henlius actively collaborates with our global leading partners to pursue discovery and technology advance. HanchorBio was founded by Dr. Scott Liu, one of the co-founders of Henlius, and the Company possesses an experienced management team with a great mission and vision. Taking innovation as a driver, HanchorBio has quickly built its differentiated advantages and stands out in the field of onco-immunotherapy. This collaboration will allow Henlius to further accelerate our practice of affordable innovation and benefit more patients worldwide by fully leveraging HanchorBio's leading-edge technology and R&D platform."

About the Collaboration

With this collaboration, Henlius will consider early licensing and/or establish research collaboration of promising products from HanchorBio's pipeline that are complementary to Henlius' current portfolio (e.g., FBDB^TM platform molecules, engineered immunocytokines etc.). This will be detailed in a separate agreement upon successful presentation of relevant efficacy/safety data. Under the terms of the agreement, Henlius will also have the opportunity to opt-in and co-develop the selected products with HanchorBio.

About Henlius

Henlius is a global biopharmaceutical company with the vision to offer high-quality, affordable, and innovative biologic medicines for patients worldwide with a focus on oncology, autoimmune diseases, and ophthalmic diseases. Since its inception in 2010, Henlius has built an integrated biopharmaceutical platform with core capabilities of high-efficiency and innovation embedded throughout the whole product life cycle including R&D, manufacturing, and commercialization. It has established global innovation centers and Shanghai-based manufacturing facilities in compliance with global Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), including Xuhui Plant certificated by China and the EU GMP and Songjiang-I Plant certificated by China GMP. Apart from the launched biosimilar products HANLIKANG (rituximab), HANQUYOU (trastuzumab) for injection, trade name in Europe: Zercepac^®; trade names in Australia: Tuzucip^® and Trastucip^®, HANDAYUAN (adalimumab) and HANBEITAI (bevacizumab), the innovative product HANSIZHUANG (anti-PD-1) has been approved by the NMPA for the treatment of MSI-H solid tumors, squamous non-small cell lung cancer (sqNSCLC), and extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), making it the world's first anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody for the first-line treatment of SCLC. Its NDA for the treatment of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is under review. What's more, Henlius has conducted over 30 clinical trials for 16 products, expanding its presence in major and emerging markets.

About HanchorBio 

Based in Taipei, Shanghai, and San Francisco Bay Area, HanchorBio is a global clinical-stage biotechnology company focusing on immuno-oncology. The Company is led by an experienced team of pharmaceutical industry veterans with proven track-record of success in biologics discovery and global development to transcend current cancer therapies. Committed to reactivating the immune system to fight against diseases, the proprietary Fc-based designer biologics (FBDB™) platform enables unique biologics with diverse multi-targeting modalities to unleash both innate and adaptive immunity to overcome the current inadequacies of anti-PD1/L1 immunotherapies. The FBDB™ platform has successfully delivered proof-of-concept data in several in vivo tumor animal models. By making breakthroughs in multi-functional innovative molecular configurations in R&D and improving the manufacturing process in CMC, HanchorBio develops transformative medicines to address unmet medical needs.

For more information, please visit: www.HanchorBio.com

or follow us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/hanchorbio-inc

Contact Information:
Scott Liu
Founder, Chairman and CEO
scott_liu@hanchorbio.com

Yi Du
Sr. Director of Business Development
yi_du@hanchorbio.com


Original Source: HanchorBio and Henlius Announce Strategic Collaboration to Develop Innovative Immunotherapies