To honor its part for phase one of the U.S.-China trade deal, China has revised its patent law to establish a drug patent linkage system and provide compensation for lost patent terms.

Cross-border startup Scineuro Pharmaceuticals Ltd., which focuses on central nervous system (CNS) diseases, inked a deal with Eli Lilly and Co. to license in the greater China rights of alpha-synuclein-targeted antibody therapies to follow the global drug development trend in this space.

Now drugmakers can gain instant access to hospitals in Hainan province right after their innovative drugs are approved by China’s National Medical Products Administration to skip market entry hurdles.

Suzhou-China based Cstone Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., which in-licensed RET inhibitor pralsetinib from Blueprint Medicines Corp. in 2018, has won Chinese approval for the drug to treat adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic RET fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer after platinum-based chemotherapy. Already approved as Gavreto in the U.S., the drug is Cstone’s first product approved in China and the country’s first selective RET inhibitor.

Zenas Biopharma LLC launched on March 23 as a U.S. funded cross-border biotech company targeting autoimmune diseases in China. The company, headquartered in Miromar Lakes, Fla., is founded and funded by Tellus Bioventures LLC and Fairmount Funds Management LLC.

The continuing politicization of COVID-19 vaccines is undermining medical science and the international response to the pandemic. “Vaccine nationalism is very troubling,” Jeremy Levin, chair of BIO's executive committee, told BioWorld.

Qihan Biotechology Co. Ltd., a company known for its multiplexable genome editing technology, has yet again extended its series A financing, this time with a $67 million round that will support advancement of its allogeneic cell therapy candidates to IND in China. To date the company has raised more than $100 million.