YB1 Thrombolytic Bacterial Therapy leads the innovation track in cardiovascular disease prevention and alert doesn't become a boiled frog.

Human life is always based on good health, but it is not easy to stay healthy — cancer, HIV, cardiovascular disease, and other health “killers” have long been a threat to human life. The threat to human life is enormous.

Currently, cardiovascular disease has become the number one cause of death worldwide and in China. Its incidence has continued to rise in recent years, making it the most common mass disease.

However, the initial symptoms of cardiovascular disease are easily overlooked. Patients can easily fall into “boiling a frog in warm water” due to a lack of awareness or errors in understanding these diseases. By the time cardiovascular disease develops, it has often progressed to a severe stage, resulting in the tragic consequences of death or disability of the patient.

Major risk factors for cardiovascular disease: hypertension

How cardiovascular disease is destroying human health

It can be stated in terms of the factors that influence it. In addition to non-interventional factors such as age, gender, race, and genetic factors, interventional factors for cardiovascular disease include hypertension, abnormal glucose metabolism, dyslipidaemia, heart disease, asymptomatic carotid atherosclerosis, and lifestyle, with hypertension being the most common significant risk factor.

Generally speaking, cardiovascular disease refers to the corresponding symptoms affecting the body’s circulatory system, which consists of the heart, blood vessels and neurohumoral tissues that regulate blood circulation.

Cardiovascular disease is now the leading cause of death and disability in China and worldwide. Hypertension is considered one of the most common risk factors for a wide range of serious cardiovascular diseases.

What is the definition of hypertension?

Hypertension is a clinical condition characterized by high systolic and diastolic arterial blood pressure in the bodily circulation (systolic blood pressure 140 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure 90 mmHg), as well as functional or biological damage to the heart, brain, kidneys, and other organs. The most frequent chronic condition and the most critical risk factor for the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease is hypertension.

Hypertension is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease and an essential contributor to morbidity and mortality.

According to Frost & Sullivan, more than a quarter of adult Chinese suffer from hypertension as of 2019. Only around 22% of these people have their condition under control, meaning their blood pressure can be kept below the treatment target (mean systolic blood pressure below 140 mmHg and mean diastolic blood pressure below 90 mmHg) with lifestyle modifications and mild medication usage.

On the other hand, hypertension is considered recalcitrant when a patient takes at least three different types of anti-hypertensive medications (including diuretics) at the maximum tolerated dose and still cannot maintain blood pressure below the therapeutic target of 140/90 mmHg.

Cases of hypertension that are more severe than controlled hypertension but less severe than intractable hypertension are referred to as uncontrolled hypertension. Effective treatment for cardiovascular-related diseases caused by hypertension is still limited, and the market for interventional therapies for cardiovascular disease and hypertension is in its infancy in China.

With the rising incidence of cardiovascular disease and hypertension, increased patient health awareness, increased patient affordability, and improved physician clinical practice, the industry anticipates strong growth in the market for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease and hypertension in China and globally in coming years.

The most common cardiovascular disease — coronary artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD), also known as ischaemic heart disease, is a cardiovascular disease caused by narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries, usually due to atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis is the build-up of plaque in the walls of arteries: when blood lipid levels are high, cholesterol and other substances tend to deposit in the walls of arteries and form plaques. CAD is one of the most common types of organ disease caused by atherosclerosis.

The dynamic nature of the CAD process leads to various clinical presentations that can be classified as either acute coronary syndrome (ACS) or chronic coronary syndrome (CCS).

The most common symptoms of ACS are chest pain, often radiating to the left shoulder or jawline and accompanied by nausea and sweating.

ACS is usually associated with three clinical presentations.

Unstable angina (UA)

Non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI)

ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)

CCS, also known as stable coronary artery disease (SCAD), is considered the out-of-hospital counterpart type of ACS. In the presence of risk factors or known atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, CCS can be diagnosed in most patients based on the past medical history of angina pectoris.

The most important behavioural risk factors for CAD are unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, smoking and harmful alcohol use, and several associated determinants of CAD, including ageing, stress and genetic factors.

CAD is the most common form of cardiovascular disease and is a severe threat to human health due to its high morbidity and mortality. Due to the ageing population and sedentary lifestyle, the number of CAD patients in China and worldwide has increased at an alarming rate in recent years. It is expected to continue to grow in the future.

In China, in particular, the prevalence of CAD increased from 22 million patients in 2015 to 24.6 million patients in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 2.8%, and is estimated to further increase to 31.7 million patients by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 2.3% from 2019 to 2030.

Treatment of thrombotic disease in the cardiovascular field: access to thrombolytic therapy continues to improve

Currently, the treatment of CAD is generally divided into four categories: drug therapy, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and stem cell transplantation. Using ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction as an example, there are currently two main types of treatment for acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction: PCI surgery and thrombolysis. According to the Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute ST-segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction and the Guidelines for the Emergency Rapid Treatment of Acute Coronary Syndromes.

Thrombolysis has specific advantages over PCI, namely that it is relatively inexpensive and less traumatic for the patient and that it is more accessible in our current medical situation.

Overall, pharmaceutical treatments can be utilized to address CAD risk factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes and relieve patients’ symptoms. In recent years, the availability of thrombolytic drug therapy for treating thrombotic disease in the cardiovascular field has increased. It is now increasingly common in clinical use.

However, the two primary thrombolytic medications, recombinant urokinase and rt-PA, have a relatively short half-life of 4–8 minutes and do not ease the start of acute thrombosis, which is a drawback standard thrombolytic drug treatment, making novel thrombolytic drug revisions unavoidable.

As an innovative biopharmaceutical company, the macromolecular drug delivery vehicle YB1 developed by HKND can target the release of thrombolytic agents at the location of thrombosis. Avoiding the problems caused by excessive thrombolysis and has recently attracted widespread attention in the industry market.

YB1, the world’s first thrombus-targeting technology, may be used with various thrombolytic medications to accurately target the thrombus and release the thrombolytic agent, resulting in a precise and focused thrombolytic impact.

The YB1-rt-PA is the company’s first generation of targeted thrombus ablation products. The main feature of carrying YB1 and releasing urokinase at the thrombus location offers fast, targeted release of thrombolytic drugs.

We also have two product pipelines for YB1 combined with fibrin-lowering enzyme and fibrinolytic enzyme, YB1-rt-DE and YB1-rt-PL. We look forward to the eventual maturation of this new technology, which will bring more surprises to the thrombolytic therapy market. We hope to contribute to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases through innovative drug development.