Cancer drug developed in China licensed by US firm

Shanghai-based Fudan University has signed an agreement worth $65 million with Huya Bioscience International, for the US biotech consulting firm to exclusively license a series of novel candidate medications that could be used to treat cancer.

A research group led by professor Yang Qing at the university’s School of Life Sciences spent more than 10 years developing the panel of novel inhibitors of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) specified in the agreement.

A wide range of cancers, such as pancreatic, cervical, gastric, ovarian and lung, overexpress the IDO enzyme, which permits tumor cells to escape the notice of the human immune system.

The US firm, which has more than a decade’s experience developing biopharmaceuticals originating in China, plans to advance the drugs to the clinical testing stage.