HONG KONG, April 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- 6th-7th April, the "2022 SAPA-China Annual Conference - Opportunities and Challenges for the Development of China's Biopharmaceutical Industry" hosted by The Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association (SAPA) was held in Chengdu, Sichuan. Viva Biotech was invited to participate in this annual conference, and Dr. Jianhua Cai, Senior Vice President of Viva Biotech, and Dr. Jianguo Ma, Senior Vice President of Viva Biotech and CEO of Langhua Pharmaceutical, were invited as guest speakers in the keynote speeches.
Throughout the years, the United States has been a leader in the global innovative pharmaceutical product field, where many blockbuster drugs are born and greatly improved the life quality of patients. However, compared to leading countries like the United States, Chinese pharmaceutical industry still has a long way to go in terms of developing innovative new drug. As one of the key players in innovative drug discovery CRO, Viva has served thousands of global innovative drug development clients in the past decade. Through an analysis of the collaboration with these international and domestic clients, Dr. Cai pointed out that overseas innovative biotech companies prefer biology-driven drug discovery strategies and pay more efforts on studying biological mechanisms. In contrast, in the past decades domestic clients focus more on fast follow strategy. However, from the increasing demand for drug screening technology by domestic clients, the innovation of domestic companies' projects has been continuously improving in recent years, and more and more domestic companies are initiating first-in-class drug development projects. In order to further illustrate the biologically-driven R&D strategy of overseas innovative drug companies, Dr. Cai shared two successful cases published by a foreign partner of Viva in the top international journals Science and Journal of Medicinal Chemistry respectively (details in the reference at the end of the article). Dr. Cai gave a comprehensive introduction to Viva's biophysical technologies, including X-ray, Cryo-EM, HDX-MS, SPR, Intact-MS, Native-MS, and their critical roles in drug mechanism of action (MOA) studies. He explained how to use biophysical technologies for affinity-based drug screening and shared the application of ASMS technology in the screening of multi-conformational proteins and molecular glue, crystal soaking technology and SPR screening of fragment libraries, and Intact-MS screening of covalent compound libraries. Finally, Dr. Cai showcased Viva's technology platform in original drug research through 2 case studies: the discovery of small molecule PCSK9 conformational inhibitors and pseudokinase targets. Viva's medicinal chemistry team also participated in the compound design and optimization of these projects, making important contributions to the compounds' intellectual property. He believes that in the future, Viva Biotech can empower more domestic innovative drug companies and help them achieve internationalization in original drug research.
Nowadays, green chemistry has become a globally focused area, and more and more pharmaceutical companies are including it in their considerations to promote sustainable and benign development of their businesses. Dr. Jianguo Ma provided a comprehensive introduction to what green chemistry is, existing and urgently needed green chemistry technologies. He emphasizes green chemistry technologies such as continuous reactions, enzyme catalysis, hydrogen borrowing reactions, photoredox reactions, and provides in-depth explanations of their wide applications in production with multiple classic cases. Finally, regarding the future development of green chemistry, Dr. Ma believes that synthetic biology will be the most promising green chemistry for drug synthesis.
At SAPA-CHINA, Viva Biotech fully demonstrated its one-stop platform for early-stage structure-based drug discovery to commercial drug delivery, as well as multiple core technologies and successful cases such as protein production and preparation, structural biology, cryo-EM, drug screening, Bioassay, medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug design, etc. The exhibition attracted many guests to visit and consult, and the feedback on site was positive with a warm atmosphere.
Reference:
[1] Wei, W. et. al. SCIENCE. 4 Apr 2013. Vol 340, Issue 6132. pp. 622-626
[2] Zenon Konteatis et. al. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2021 64 (8), 4430-4449
