Ovarian cancer forum held in Beijing

With the seventh World Ovarian Cancer Day falling May 8, a forum on ovarian cancer prevention and treatment was held Tuesday in Beijing by Health Times, a health publication affiliated with People's Daily.

Industry figures attending called for increased efforts to develop domestically produced drugs, as well as the promotion of standardized treatment procedures, both of which are needed to provide better disease care to ovarian cancer patients in China.

Wu Lingying, director of the gynecological oncology department of Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said because ovarian cancer is relatively difficult to detect, about 70 percent of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed in relatively late stages, and the majority of patients will have cancer relapses.

As the time windows between relapses often shorten one after another, the five-year survival rate of the cancer is very low, she said, adding standardized treatment procedures are important to help deliver better outcomes for patients.

Liu Wengui, founder of Mijian 360.com, an online community for cancer patients and their families, said that a lot of new drugs and treatments have emerged for many other cancers in recent years, but not for ovarian cancer.

Many patients are worried that they will face the problem of medicine shortages after relapses, he said.

Liang Yi, chief commercial officer and China president at Zai Lab, a biopharmaceutical company based in Shanghai, said compared to other cancers that affect large populations, ovarian cancer does not receive enough attention from both the pharmaceutical industry and the public in China.

He said his company is devoted to bringing the best treatment to Chinese patients as fast as possible, and the China National Medical Products Administration earlier this year accepted the company's new drug application for ZEJULA (niraparib, or ZL-2306) as a category one drug for fast-track review.

The drug is for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal ovarian cancer who are in a complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy.

Song Ruilin, executive president of the China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association, said Chinese pharmaceutical companies have made remarkable progress in new drug research and development in the past few years.

He said he hopes more innovation from Chinese pharmaceutical companies will provide better drugs for Chinese cancer patients, especially cancers that affect large populations in China but not in other countries.