In September 2021, Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (HKEX: 3692) ("Hansoh Pharma") signed a joint project cooperation agreement with Leto Laboratories Co. Ltd. ("Leto Laboratories"), in which the two parties agreed to focus on project cooperation in the field of metabolic diseases to jointly promote the development and production of a new type of drug molecule for metabolic disease.
Metabolic disease refers to a category of diseases related to human metabolism, including diabetes, obesity, and hyperlipidemia, with characteristics that include complicated pathogenesis, a long course for the disease, and difficult treatment. With the changes in human diets and living environments, new characteristics for metabolic diseases and their complications have also appeared that include a higher incidence and younger age. According to the “China Cardiovascular Health and Disease Report (2020)” that was just released in July 2021, based on the WHO diagnostic criteria, the prevalence of diabetes in adults in China was 11.2%, and the pre-diabetes detection rate was only 35.2%. In addition, there were about 277.8 million adults with abdominal obesity in China, and deaths from cardiovascular diseases have become the leading cause of death for urban and rural residents in China. These issues have become human health problems of global concern, causing governments and large pharmaceutical companies to all pay great attention to researching and developing new drugs for metabolic diseases. In recent years, the market size for digestive and metabolic drugs in public hospitals has risen rapidly in China, from approximately 100 billion RMB in 2013 to approximately 180 billion RMB in 2020. In such a huge market, diabetes drugs hold the largest market share. In the first half of 2020, the use of diabetes drugs accounted for more than one-third of the total digestive and metabolic drugs used in public hospitals (Source: Qianzhan Industrial Research Institute).
In the win-win cooperation between Leto Laboratories and Hansoh Pharma, by relying on the advantages of Hansoh Pharma in clinical research and drug commercial production and sales, Leto Laboratories, which is an enterprise that has also been deeply engaged in developing drugs for metabolic diseases for many years, will start to work closely with Hansoh Pharma to jointly advance the design and clinical stage research for new multifunctional hypoglycemic and lipid-lowering drugs. These drugs will meet the needs in both the market and among patients for safer and more effective hypoglycemic and lipid-lowering drugs, thereby aiding the "Healthy China 2030" initiative with real action.
Mr. Lv Aifeng, the Executive Director of Hansoh Pharma, said that: "We are honored and delighted to cooperate with Leto Laboratories. We will be committed to promoting the development and approval of products in China. The strategic cooperation between the two parties will not only enhance our strength in metabolic diseases, but also provide new possibilities that will benefit more patients. We believe that this cooperation is essential to our long-term development strategy of enhancing the strength of our peptide pipeline."
“This is a win-win cooperation!", said Dr. Zhang Wei, the founder and chairman of Leto Laboratories. He went on to say that: "It is a great honor to have entered into a cooperative project with Hansoh Pharma at this time. Both parties share a common vision in the field of improving human health and treating metabolic diseases. In this cooperation, Leto Laboratories will fully utilize its technical advantages of its in-house protein engineering design platform and ultra-high-throughput macromolecule screening platform to promote the design and research of new drug molecules together with Hansoh Pharma. At the same time, with the help of Leto Laboratories’ unique protein-directed denaturation technology and years of accumulated experience in the field of prokaryotic process development, Leto Laboratories will cooperate with Hansoh Pharma in downstream drug production to quickly promote the clinical research and marketing of the new drugs. The cooperation between Leto Laboratories and Hansoh Pharma will also be a representative cooperation between an innovative bio-tech and a large pharmaceutical company with complementary advantages"
About Hansoh Pharma
Hansoh Pharma was founded in 1995 as a leading innovation-driven pharmaceutical company in China. With its corporate mission of " create excellence in pharmaceuticals, enhance innovation in China", the company is committed to improving human health, focusing on the treatment of major diseases in areas including anti-tumor, central nervous system, anti-infection, and diabetes through continuous innovations. Thus far, it has independently developed and launched 5 new national Class I drugs, with over 100 drugs in the developmental phase and over 20 innovative drugs in the clinical phase, which together form a diverse portfolio of product lines. The company has been honored in the top 30 of the Top 100 Chinese Pharmaceutical Companies and the top three in the China Top Industrial Enterprises for Pharmaceutical R&D Product Lines for several years in a row. It is currently classified as a national-level key high-tech enterprise and technological innovation demonstration enterprise. In June 2019, the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code: HK.03692).
About Leto Laboratories
Leto Laboratories is a high-tech enterprise and biotechnology research and development institution that focuses on the research and development of new protein drugs. Through a series of leading technology platforms that include its internationally leading protein engineering transformation platform, ultra-high-throughput screening platform for protein drug molecules, and targeted protein denaturation technology, the company has efficiently realized the molecular design, screening, and purification of new protein drugs, as well as the development of drug formulations, site-specific coupling, and other developmental work. In recent years, by relying on its independent and powerful refolding technology, and with its advanced protein engineering design concepts, Leto Laboratories has innovatively developed a number of recombinant protein drug pipelines with independent intellectual property rights, and has established and perfected its R&D quality management standards. In only the last 3 years, Leto Laboratories has accumulated hundreds of millions of yuan in financing, and has established strategic cooperation projects with many well-known domestic pharmaceutical companies.
