On 23 September 2021, China Medical System Holdings Limited (“CMS”, together with its subsidiaries, the “Group”) and Trinomab Biotech Co., Ltd. (珠海泰诺麦博生物技术有限公司, the English name is for identification purpose) (“Trinomab”), an innovative biotech company, signed new collaboration agreements regarding two innovative products including the Fully Human Anti-SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Antibody. Since April this year, the Group has made equity investment in Trinomab and continued to introduce innovative products. So far, both sides have reached collaboration on 4 innovative medicines in total, constantly enriching the differentiated innovative pipeline.
According to the agreements, the Group will establish a new joint venture with Trinomab. The Group will make capital contribution in cash in the joint venture, while Trinomab will make capital contribution using the global rights and interests in the related technologies of the two collaborative products as intangible assets. Both sides will each own 50% of the equity interest of the joint venture. The Group will be responsible for the subsequent clinical development of the products and the commercialization of the products in Mainland China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macau Special Administrative Region and Taiwan (the “Greater China”), and will have the priority in potential cooperation outside the Greater China under equal conditions. Both sides will make full use of their core strengths in th innovation industry chain and accelerate the entire process from discovery, preclinical research, clinical development to commercialization of innovative medicines.
The two collaborative innovative products are developed via Trinomab’s proprietary technology platform HitmAb®. The greatest advantage of the natural fully human monoclonal antibodies developed by the platform is its high safety, having broad spectrum to foreign pathogens and strong affinity with pathogen targets, which can solve the problem of anti-drug antibody reaction in the clinical use of antibody drugs developed by traditional technologies.
About Fully Human Anti-COVID-19 Antibody
Fully Human Anti-COVID-19 Antibody is a natural fully human antibody against COVID-19 infection which can directly neutralize COVID-19, and neutralizing antibody cocktail therapy is expected to prevent and treat COVID-19 infection. The product is currently in the preclinical stage.
COVID-19 is still an ongoing global pandemic so far, while approved vaccines are not able to provide absolute protection and there is no etiological treatment for the infection available worldwide. Neutralizing antibody, as a kind of monoclonal antibody with antiviral activity, has specificity and high affinity, and it is capable of occupying the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein (S protein) on the surface of COVID-19, thus blocking virus binding to host cells and preventing the virus from infecting cells, eventually clearing the virus by the immune system. Several reports have suggested that COVID-19 neutralizing antibody has the potential to treat and prevent COVID-19 infection and may be complementary to the COVID-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, COVID-19 neutralizing antibody cocktail therapy combining two or more monoclonal antibodies that recognize different regions of COVID-19 virus surface can provide broad neutralizing activities, preventing the generation of drug-resistant variants and covering a wider population compared with a single-component antibody.
The preclinical data of Fully Human Anti-COVID-19 Antibody shows that the product is effective against major current variants, including the South African and Indian variants, while having high safety as a natural fully human monoclonal antibody. Facing the potential pandemic caused by new variants, the product is expected to further meet the global needs for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection.
In the future, the Group will continue to negotiate with Trinomab and promote the priority collaboration on more natural fully human monoclonal antibodies, so as to accelerate the launch of products in China and provide patients with effective and safe innovative medicines.