SCOL.com.cn (Reported by Wang Yue)              In recent years, entrepreneurs in the pharmaceutical industry are focusing on the development of China’s own innovative drugs. Antitumor drugs are the direction that many entrepreneurs choose to engage in. “The first step to develop an innovative antitumor drug is to develop your own antitumor antibody. In the past, China’s technology was very backward in the field of antibody drug discovery, so I chose to return to China to start a business and use the “100-billion-level” antibody library developed by myself to develop innovative antitumor antibodies. “In 2016, Liu Jianghai founded Ablink Biotech Co., Ltd. in Chengdu Tianfu Life Science Park.

Why an antibody library is required for the development of innovative drugs?

“Tumor is very complicated, but also very special. It often expresses some mutated proteins or highly expresses some proteins related to tumor growth and expansion. These proteins are called tumor antigens or drug targets. So we often hear a word called targeted drug. “Liu Jianghai said that in traditional tumor treatment, some small chemical molecules are more used, that is, chemotherapy. These chemical molecules often kill healthy cells while killing cancer cells. “Chemotherapy is target indiscriminate, so hair loss, loss of white blood cells, and general aching occur to patients. However, the antibody drugs only kill tumor cells and do not harm healthy cells, so generally speaking, antibody drugs have a very low toxicity.”

In 2013, mother of Liu Jianghai’s friend had breast cancer. “At that time, they didn’t know the targeted drug and had chosen conservative treatment. Her condition at that time had been too severe to get out of bed.” Afterwards, his friend asked if the antibody drugs and targeted drugs he was developing could treat breast cancer. “I suggested his mother do a genetic diagnosis and see which target or antigen caused the tumor. It turned out that a HER2 target spot was found. Later, my friend’s mother used Herceptin, an antibody drug that can target at HER2. Three months later, his mother’s tumors shrank noticeably, and she began to get out of bed, exercise, cook, and live normally, until she died from tumor recurrence in 2018.”

“In recent years, the government and enterprises have realized the importance of the development of innovative drugs. Many entrepreneurs have taken the development of new tumor antibody drugs as the target of startup. But they face great challenges even in the first step–the discovery of antibodies. The technology of antibody discovery in China is very backward, so I want to return to China and establish a company focusing on antibody discovery using the advanced antibody library technology.” In March 2016, Liu Jianghai co-founded Ablink with Dr. RONGEYER, director of the Canadian Therapeutic Antibody Resource Center and the angel investor Huang Qi. In 2017, the company developed a new generation of “phage display antibody library” with independent intellectual property rights. In 2018, the company developed the diversity of the antibody library into the “100-billion level”, becoming the most diverse antibody library in China.

Theoretically, antibodies for all tumor targets can be found once the “100-billion-level” antibody library is completed.

Liu Jianghai often describes the antibody library by two words: capacity and diversity. “Capacity means that there is something in the library. Just like a pond, the larger the pond, the more fish in the pond. But if there is only one species of fish, you will never catch fish of any other species. So large capacity only means the large number of fish, but not necessarily means diversified species of fish. “Liu Jianghai further explained that the second key word: diversity. “Carps, yellow croakers, and mandarin fish are not enough for a pond. The pond needs more species of fish to realize the diversity. In 2018, the company has developed the diversity to 10¹³, that is, 100-billion-level.”

How many tumor problems can a 100-billion-level antibody library solve? “Theoretically, antibodies for all tumor antigens can be discovered. So far, we have screened antibodies for 90% of the antigens.”

In 2016, Ablink’s fully synthetic antibody library technology was identified by the Expert Committee of Sichuan Provincial Economic and Information Department as “World-leading”, which is the highest technical grade. Since October 2016, Ablink has been committed to building an antibody library with independent intellectual property rights, including multiple fully humanized antibody libraries, fully synthetic antibody libraries and nanobody libraries. At the same time, the company has also developed a variety of biological drug libraries of other types, including the first chimeric antigen receptor library (CAR-T library), the first T-cell receptor library (TCR-T library), and the 10-billion-level diversified polypeptide drug library, forming a diversified “100-billion-level” biological drug library.

In addition, Ablink is also developing its own innovative medicine. “We are discovering new biological drug, including monoclonal antibody drugs, CAR-T/TCR-T drugs, polypeptide drugs, small molecular protein drugs, etc., and we have, by far, provided antibody screening and optimization services for many well-known companies. We have also independently developed some new drugs, including multiple antibody candidates, for which animal pharmacodynamics tests have been completed. We plan to promote clinical application of these candidates through transfer, authorization, or joint development, bringing benefit to patients.”

“I am very glad to set up the company in Tianfu Life Science Park in Chengdu. There are many biotechnology companies like us here. We communicate, learn and cooperate with each other.

In 2018, Liu Jianghai also served as a researcher at Chengdu Medical College to promote the development of biological drugs through university-industry cooperation. “Chengdu has a very good entrepreneurial environment for the biological medicine industry. Here we met HitGen, a unicorn company that develops chemical small molecule drug libraries, and recently listed on the sci-tech innovation board. By learning from them and imitating them, we have gradually become a new type of biotechnology company integrating technical services and R&D of drugs.”