Recently, Henlius held its second Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) meeting in California. Scientific representatives from three Research and Development (R&D) centers located in Shanghai, Taiwan China and the United States have attended the meeting.
The SAB meeting was mainly focused on the latest scientific discoveries, competitive landscape, Henlius differentiation strategy, current pipeline and research plan. The SAB members provided valuable scientific evaluation and advice regarding project priority, future direction and resource allocation. In addition to the three current scientific advisors, Professors Kun-Liang Guan, Yiping Yang and Weiping Zou who joined at the first SAB meeting, Professor Zihai Li made his first appearance as a new member of world-renowned experts.
During the meeting, Dr. Weidong Jiang, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Henlius, took the lead in reviewing recent development of the company. The R&D group leaders from US, Taiwan China and Shanghai shared project highlights. The SAB members had an in-depth discussion with Henlius scientists on clinical advancement, industry trend and novel targets for immuno-oncology. The meeting was concluded by Dr. Scott Liu, Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Henlius, summarizing future directions and corporate growth strategy of the company.
Biographies of Scientific Advisory Board Members
Dr. Zihai Li received his medical degree from Henan Medical University and Peking Union Medical College, and his Ph.D. in Microbiology & Immunology from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. He finished his residency training in Internal Medicine at Montefiore-Einstein Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed his fellowship in Medical Oncology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington.Dr. Li’s areas of expertise include cancer immunology, immune tolerance, and functions of endoplasmic reticulum chaperones in cancer biology and therapy. The current work of the Li laboratory focuses on developing better immune therapeutics in the forms of antibodies, adoptive T cell transfer and immune checkpoint blockers, aiming to reverse and reprogram the tolerogenic tumor microenvironment for cancer cure. Fundamental mechanisms of immune regulation are being studied in parallel. Dr. Zihai Li is an elected member of two prestigious physician scientist honor societies: American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and Association of American Physicians (AAP).
Dr. Kun-Liang Guan is a Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego. He obtained his BS (1982) at Hangzhou University, China and Ph.D. (1989) at Purdue University. From 1992-2007, Guan was a faculty at the University of Michigan. He received the MacArthur Fellowship, the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Young Investigator Award, Distinguished Alumni Award from Purdue University, an AAAS Fellow, and is a highly cited researcher in Molecular Biology & Genetics (Thomson Reuters). Guan studies signaling mechanisms of cell growth and tumorigenesis, particular focusing on the mTOR and Hippo pathways.
Dr. Yiping Yang received his M.D. from Zhejiang University, and Ph.D. from University of Michigan. He then completed his postdoctoral training and Internal Medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and his Medical Oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. He is an ABIM-certified physician with clinical interest in lymphoma and leukemia. He has been selected as America’s top oncologist since 2008. Funded by grants from National Institute of Health and private foundations, his research focuses on cancer immunology and immunotherapy, as well as gene therapy and viral immunity. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Science, Nature Immunology, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Immunity, JCI, PNAS, etc.
Dr. Weiping Zou is a faculty at the University of Michigan. His research interests are in tumor immunopathology and immunotherapy. Over the past few years, his research team has achieved important insights into cancer immunopathogenesis. His research efforts demonstrate that the tumor microenvironment is comprised of immune cells that have been reprogrammed by active tumor-mediated processes to defeat tumor immunity and promote tumor progression in a highly effective manner. These studies have helped define the nature of immune responses in the cancer microenvironment, form the concept of immunosuppressive networks in the cancer microenvironment and provide significant insights into designing current immune therapies including inhibitory B7 checkpoint blockade (PD-L1, B7-H1) to treat cancer patients. The Zou laboratory is one of the most cited research teams in the field of Cancer Immunology. Dr. Zou is/was an editorial board member for 9 scientific journals. He has delivered more than 200 invited lectures. He serves as a reviewer for more than 15 funding agencies including NIH and DOD, and for more than 50 scientific journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, Science, and Nature journals. He is the AACR Cancer Immunology Chairperson-elect 2018-2019.
About Henlius SAB
The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of Henlius was established in May 2018, which consists of world-renowned scientists or physicians including Dr. Kun-Liang Guan, Dr. Yiping Yang, Dr. Weiping Zou and Dr. Zihai Li. These experts of biology, immunology and oncology have not only brought in professional insights on Henlius research strategy, but also provided scientific guidance on antibody discovery and development, helping Henlius to develop high-quality and affordable drugs to enhance the product pipeline and bring effective combo immunotherapy to patients.
About Henlius
Shanghai Henlius Biotech, Inc., a joint venture company co-founded by Fosun Pharma and a team of overseas scientists in December 2009, with its R&D footprint in Shanghai, Taipei and California, USA, specializes in the discovery, development, manufacturing and commercialization of high-quality biologics including biosimilar, bio-better and bio-novel monoclonal antibodies, to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases.
As of today, Henlius has completed IND/CTA filings of 12 products and 1 combination immuno-oncology therapy with 20 indications and obtained 27 successful IND/CTA fillings (17 approvals from mainland China; 3 from Taiwan; 3 from United States, and 1 each from the European Union, Ukraine, the Philippines and Australia).