By in-depth integration of in-house quality research resources, the Company has established a full-chain quality research platform compliant with regulatory requirements set forth by NMPA, FDA and EMA. The platform delivers end-to-end lifecycle management capabilities spanning early-stage drug discovery, clinical application submission through to commercial manufacturing, enabling scientific backing for the R&D and industrialization of innovative therapeutics including monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and recombinant nanoparticle vaccines.
It has built a closed-loop process development system covering druggability assessment of candidate molecules, high-yield cell line construction, upstream and downstream process development (cell culture, purification and formulation process scale-up), as well as technology transfer and commercial manufacturing to empower full-spectrum drug development.
Furthermore, the Company has formulated study frameworks for forced degradation, compatibility stability and shipment simulation in alignment with ICH Q-series guidelines. Such setups concurrently support multi-jurisdictional registration filings in China, the US and Europe, facilitate global mutual recognition of comparability study data and strengthen the Group’s capacity for internationally compliant pharmaceutical research.
Our ADCC-enhanced antibody platform is mainly based on gene editing technology to knock-out the FUT8 protein in CHO-K1 host cells for producing antibodies, and the antibodies produced by the engineered host cells are completely free fucose. Since the fucose in the Fc region of the antibody hinders the binding of the antibody to FcγRIIIa (CD16a), the afucosylated Fc region increases the affinity of the antibody to FcγRIIIa, so the afucosylated antibody can recruit more effector cells to be to the tumor site to enhance the effect of ADCC (one of the main mechanisms of therapeutic antibodies in cancer treatment). We have currently developed six ADCC-enhanced antibody drug candidates, all of which are in clinical development stage.