Global Lung Cancer Awareness Month: Tumour immunotherapy takes off, YB1 oncolytic bacteria lead the way

With the advancement of biotechnology and medical science, people’s understanding of cancer has gradually increased in recent years. They no longer seem to be as “cancer-phobic” as they once were. Still, as long as the cancer is not eradicated, it will continue to be a topic of special concern to the public.

Every year, November is “Global Lung Cancer Awareness Month,” and this past November 17 was also the annual “International Lung Cancer Day.” On this day, topics such as #why most women get lung cancer even if they don’t smoke and #lung cancer is the most deadly cancer in China have been on the top of the hot topics on all major media platforms.

The information shows that lung cancer is currently the malignant tumour with the highest incidence and mortality rate worldwide, with one in every five cancer patients who have lung cancer. The contents of the National Cancer Centre Annual Report 2020 show that the number of lung cancer cases in China is the highest among malignant tumours, and that while the five-year survival rate for early-stage lung cancer patients can reach 80–90 percent, the five-year survival rate for late-stage patients is less than 5 percent.

Cancer has been a high mortality rate disease that has been prevalent in the world for many years and has attracted sufficient attention. It can be said that the fight against cancer is a particular and unfinished business that requires the participation of doctors and patients, the research industry, and the capital market worldwide.

Spotlight on the anti-tumor sector: can a large patient base cash in on a sizeable market?

Cancer, in a broad sense, is also a collective term for all malignant tumours. A tumour is a new organism formed when local tissue cells in the body lose control and undergo unrestrained growth in response to various tumour-causing factors, usually in the form of a lump.

Benign tumours are slow-growing and have little impact on the human body; malignant tumours, generally known as cancer, tend to grow rapidly and are invasive (infiltrating into surrounding tissues) and metastatic, and are currently the biggest health care problem facing humankind and one of the most urgent human health care problems to be solved.

The number of new cancer cases is still rising globally and in China. Statistics from specialist research institutes show that there will be 18.5 million new cancer cases worldwide in 2019, and the number of new cancer cases worldwide is expected to reach 21 million in 2024 and 24.1 million in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 2.5% from 2019 to 2024 and 2.4% from 2024 to 2030.

In China, there were 4.4 million new cancer cases in 2019, and the number of new cancer cases in the country is expected to reach 5.0 million in 2024 and 5.7 million in 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 2.5% from 2019 to 2024 and 2.2% from 2024 to 2030.

The above data shows that the overall incidence of cancer in China is rising, and the number of new cancer cases will increase year by year. Among the various types of cancer with high incidence rates, lung cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, and breast cancer are at the top of the list, with the incidence of these five types of cancer together accounting for more than 50% of the overall number of new cancer cases in China in 2019.

A recent official statistic shows that lung cancer is cancer with the highest death rate in our country in 2020 and cancer with the highest death rate in the United States and worldwide in 2020.

(Data source: GLOBOCAN, ACS, NCCR, Frost & Sullivan report)

For this type of global oncology disease, the huge population base behind the condition means a huge market for cancer treatment. According to data, the global oncology drug market, including the Chinese oncology drug market, has been growing strongly in recent years, far outpacing the growth in new cancer cases, and is expected to continue to grow at a rapid pace shortly.

In terms of data, the global market for oncology drugs is expected to reach US$143.5 billion in 2019, US$244.4 billion in 2024, and US$391.3 billion in 2030, growing at a CAGR of 11.2% from 2019 to 2024 and 8.2% from 2024 to 2030.

Influenced by the increase in the number of cancer patients, the size of China’s anti-tumor drug market continues to grow rapidly, with the market size increasing from 110.2 billion yuan in 2015 to 182.7 billion yuan in 2019. Institutional research reports estimate that the market size of China’s anti-tumor drugs will grow to 367.2 billion yuan by 2024, of which the market size of biological anti-tumor medicines is expected to grow to 116.7 billion yuan by 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 39.11% from 2019 to 2024.

Cancer treatment makes great strides: antibody-based drugs shine in the lung cancer treatment market.

Taking lung cancer, which currently has the highest mortality rate, as an example, the level of treatment has made great strides. In recent years, PD-(L)1 antibody drugs have made their way into the treatment of advanced lung cancer, with the major antibody classes becoming the current stars of the lung cancer treatment field.

In recent times, some PD-(L)1 products, including Keystone Pharmaceutical’s tocilizumab (an anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody), have published the latest study data for the first-line treatment of stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). There will be greater hope for survival.

In fact, in the field of lung cancer treatment, in the past decade or so, a variety of targeted drugs have been launched or entered the clinic for gene mutations such as EGFR, ALK, ROS1, RET, and MET. Due to the promising efficacy and manageable side effects of targeted drugs, it has become a standard procedure to detect the type of mutation first and then prioritize the corresponding targeted drug for the treatment of advanced NSCLC.

At the same time, although targeted drugs have provided significant benefits to many lung cancer patients, there are still some patients who are not suitable for targeted therapy or who develop new mutations and resistance after taking targeted drugs. For these patients, immunotherapy is an important new option.

As the name suggests, cancer immunotherapy aims to control and kill cancer cells by stimulating and enhancing the body’s immune function or regulating its immune status. As research on the human immune system continues to progress, a solid foundation has been laid for the development of tumour immunotherapy. Up to now, therapies targeting immunosuppression of the tumour microenvironment have achieved considerable success, the most representative of which are immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting the PD-(L)1 pathway.

Today, PD-(L)1 has set off a new wave of cancer immunotherapy. To date, several PD-(L)1 drug for lung cancer have been launched in China, and there are a large number of new medicines waiting to be established.

A new paradigm in cancer immunotherapy emerges — oncolytic bacterial therapy may lead the way.

Antibodies are used in a wide range of applications. Still, monoclonal antibodies are most commonly used in oncology, with high specificity and low side effects. They have become the mainstay of anti-tumor drugs as they have significant efficacy against many malignancies. However, traditional monoclonal antibodies are mainly used to treat diseases by binding to a single specific epitope. In contrast, conditions usually have multiple signaling pathways, and more effective treatment can be achieved by blocking numerous signaling pathways.

Due to the disadvantages of monotherapy, new antibody drugs are increasingly being developed. New paradigms in cancer immunotherapy are emerging, such as CAR-T cell therapy, lytic viruses, and, more cutting-edge, lytic bacterial therapy.

Lysozyme is an emerging market segment in tumor immunotherapy that has just attracted widespread attention in the market in recent years, and there are no mature products available in China yet. As one of the few major competitors focusing on this market segment, HKND has taken the lead in inventing the world’s first lysozyme vector YB1, achieving a crucial technological breakthrough in the development of lysozyme therapy.

Our core technology product, Salmonella typhimurium YB1, is a genetically programmed strain of Salmonella typhimurium that can be used as a vector to deliver antibodies, mRNA, protein drugs, etc. that precisely target hypoxic regions within tumours and replicate and amplify in large numbers within tumours, greatly increasing the concentration of YB1 vectors at the target sites of solid tumours and releasing a variety of therapeutic The YB1 vector can greatly increase the engagement of YB1 at the target site of solid tumors and remove a variety of medicinal “warhead” drugs to inhibit tumor growth and cause tumor lysis while eliminating tumor metastasis, which has great clinical potential.

YB1 is the world’s first tumour targeting technology using tumour hypoxia-specific targeting and has obtained the only patent for oxygen-regulated oncolytic bacteria in the world. YB1 technology is also highly compatible with chemotherapeutic agents, immune checkpoint antibodies, and CAR-T cell technologies. The company currently has a pipeline of seven innovative products related to oncolytic bacteria in combination with other drugs.

In addition to its application in oncology, YB1

 technology can also be applied to treat various thrombotic diseases. At present, the company has laid out several thrombolysis-related product pipelines, among which YB1-rt-PA is the first generation of targeted thrombus ablation products, the main feature of which is to carry through YB1 and release Urokinase (Urokinase) at the location of the thrombus, which can achieve rapid, targeted release of thrombolytic drugs.

As YB1 oncolytic bacterial immunotherapy begins to mark the industry, cancer immunotherapy may soon see more fresh treatment paradigms. It is expected that this innovative thinking, led by oncolytic bacteria, will bring a new face to the anti-tumor market.