This enterprise chooses to independently research and develop full industry chain production technology, with a one-time treatment of up to one million yuan! In order to reduce drug prices
In 2018, "I Am Not the God of Medicine" showed people the high cost of drugs required for the treatment of blood cancer patients. Five years have passed, and treatment methods have been constantly innovating, but there are still not many blood cancer patients who can be treated. Medications need to be able to be used in order to be effective.
CAR-T cell therapy is a chimeric antigen receptor T cell immunotherapy, which is a new precise targeted therapy for treating tumors. But currently, prices are still high globally.
Taking Novartis CAR-T cell therapy technology from the United States as an example, the cost of a single treatment is 475000 US dollars, equivalent to approximately 3.3 million Chinese yuan; The retail price of Aquilense Injection introduced by China Fosun Kate Biotechnology Co., Ltd. is 1.2 million yuan/bag, which has decreased by nearly 50% compared to foreign prices, but still priced at a million level.
The reason why it is so expensive is due to the limitations of industrial chain production technology, which is a pain point.
The treatment process of CAR-T cells can be seen as "from the patient to the patient". Firstly, personalized immune cells should be collected from the patient, followed by T cell sorting, personalized CAR-T cell production, CAR-T cell cryopreservation, personalized liquid nitrogen transportation, etc., and finally sent back to the hospital for treatment. In this process, steps such as T cell separation and activation will be involved, requiring various equipment, reagents, and consumables such as blood cell separation and washing machines. And these key equipment and reagent suppliers mostly come from multinational corporations, relying on imports and without independent pricing power, which makes the treatment of CAR-T cell therapy priced at a high level of millions and cannot be lowered.
In addition, the uniqueness of this industry lies in the small number of patients that a single device can serve. CAR-T cell drugs belong to personalized cell production, and the production capacity depends on the number of devices. One device can only provide cell production for 25 patients per year. Therefore, Yu Xuejun, Chairman and General Manager of Huadao Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., said, "If the industrial equipment is not our own, there will never be production capacity."
To lower drug prices and expand production capacity, it is necessary to reduce production and manufacturing costs. The path chosen by Huadao Biotechnology is to independently develop production technologies throughout the entire industry chain.
In 2017, Huadao Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was established. For the past 6 years, Huadao has adhered to the dual innovation path of independent intellectual property rights in the entire industry chain of "cell drug research and development+industrialization key equipment and technology research and development", and has overcome key equipment and bottleneck technologies such as CAR-T cell preparation key production equipment, disposable consumables, CAR-T cell liquid nitrogen cold chain transportation, and CAR-T cell drug liquid nitrogen storage equipment. It has also completed independent innovation CAR-T industry technology changes before the confirmatory clinical phase II. Huadao currently has five cell drug research and development and industrial bases, including Chongqing, Xianyang, Zhengzhou, Shanghai, and Changchun, with a total construction area of nearly 300000 square meters. The planned annual production capacity exceeds 500000 people and the output value exceeds 100 billion yuan.
Huadao Biotechnology plans to launch its drugs in 2025 and is expected to lower the price of its independently developed cell drugs to around 200000 yuan per patient, which is one tenth of the price of similar drugs abroad. Yu Xuejun compared the production technology of the entire industry chain to a highway. "Innovation in industrial technology is everywhere, solving the pain points that affect drug production costs and ultimately reducing production costs. This is the greatest value of industrial technology innovation. In recent years, we have been building a 'highway' for cell drugs. Once the road is built, making a few drugs will be simple."