East-West Biopharma Summit Road Trip

San Diego - nov 2022

Following the successful New York and Boston East-West Biopharma Summit Road Trips, our third event convened on Nov 9th in San Diego. The East-West Biopharma Summit Road Trip is co-hosted by Jones Day, BioCentury, BayHelix, BioAroundWorld, and MSQ Ventures. The East-West Biopharma Summit Road Trip aims to provide a communication platform for the global biopharma industry, from both east and west, to share experiences and knowledge. 

We were honored to have the following attendees in the third in-person event in San Diego: Tony Chen, partner at Jones Day, Echo Hindle-Yang, CEO & Founder of MSQ Ventures, Jason Brown, Chief Business Officer at Everest Medicines, Xin Zhang, CEO at Point Loma Biosciences, Kunyong Yang, Of Counsel at Jones Day, Jonathan Wang, Chairman & CEO of Inmagene, Schuyler Schouten, partner at Jones Day; Qiutang (Jennifer) Li, CSO at Neurophth, Yong Ben, venture partner at Eight Road Venture Capital. 

The San Diego event started with the opening speech given by Anthony Insogna, the Practice Leader IP at Jones Day. He underlined how cross-border partnership in biopharmaceuticals, especially between US and China, helps to bring innovative drugs into the market and create value.  

After this speech, the first-panel discussion focusing on “How to Advance Global Drug Development” was moderated by Tony Chen, a partner of Jones Day. Jason Brown, the Chief Business Officer of Everest Medicines, Xin Zhang, the CEO of Point Loma Biosciences, and Kunyong Yang, the Of Counsel of Jones Day, attended the panel discussion.  

The second panel was moderated by Echo Hindle-Yang, the CEO and founder of MSQ Ventures. The discussion focused on cross-border collaborations. Jonathan Wang, the Chairman & CEO of Inmagene; Schuyler Schouten, the partner at Jones Day; Qiutang (Jennifer) Li, the CSO at Neurophth and Yong Ben, the drug development advisor and Former CMO at Beigene attended the panel discussion. These excellent speakers from a variety of backgrounds provided insightful opinions based on their expertise and their perceptions toward the future development of the biotechnology industry.  

Finally, we had two presenting companies: ABM Therapeutics and Inmagene. ABM Therapeutics was a company initially founded in the Cayman Islands in 2015 and has established two operational centers in Shanghai and San Diego. The current focus of the company is oncology, particularly cancer metastasis. Inmagene is a global clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapeutics for immunology-related diseases. Believing in "Borderless Innovation", the Inmagene team strives to integrate efficient resources worldwide to develop novel therapeutics for global patients. 

Panel 1: Advancing Global Drug Development 

The first panel was moderated by Tony Chen, Partner at Jones Day. This discussion focused on the challenges and advancement of global drug development. Jason Brown, the Chief Business Officer of Everest Medicines, Xin Zhang, the CEO of Point Loma Biosciences, and Kunyong Yang, Of Counsel of Jones Day, attended the panel discussion.  

They explored the harmonization efforts regarding team efforts to maximize the benefits, sharing their experiences with different regulatory requirements and IP rights. They also provided valuable opinions on how to identify synergetic partners.

Jason Brown, the Chief Business Officer of Everest Medicines emphasized that cross-border cooperation adds value to small and mid-sized companies in terms of their expertise and resources. Importantly, it offers a way for them to bring their innovative products into the market. 

However, such cooperation has become harder and more challenging due to the recent market downturn, when compared to five years ago when cooperation was only based on identifying assets that fill the unmet medical needs. Nowadays identifying the level of innovation and quality of the assets will be more important in a global partnership.  

Jason also believed that when China reopens its border and makes it easier for people to travel, both the deal activity and stock prices should improve. Currently, fundraising will continue to be slow, but we need to prepare ourselves and wait for the next opportunity to seize. 

Xin Zhang, the CEO of Point Loma Biosciences, emphasized the crucial role of global business development for biotech start-ups in China. The Chinese biotech industry is rapidly growing as technologies are translating from universities and medical institutions to bedside, firms trade imitation for innovation and attract talents with an overseas backgrounds. However, for early-stage companies, which do not have their products on the market yet, the company’s survival should come first. The licensing model offers a great opportunity to address R&D productivity, provide time benefits, and could impress investors. Therefore, the BD team should seize the opportunity to identify promising technology and find synergetic partners. “Chinese start-ups should pay attention to the development of the BD team, as they are equally important to the R&D team and clinical team,” he said.  

Kunyong Yang, Of Counsel at Jones Day shared his point of view on global drug development from an IP perspective. He pointed out that China’s muscling into the pharmaceutical industry, helping Big Pharma bite back against generics. Taking the recent licensing deal between China’s Kelun Pharma and Merck as an example, we could see that Chinese biopharma companies are emerging on the global innovation stage. Noteworthy, licensing intellectual property in the biotech industry is often an important factor in the successful commercialization of early-stage therapeutics. In many aspects, biotech is the most challenging IP-based industry for which to source capital. No other sector requires so much resilience, time, and money to bring its products to market. As such, understanding the expectations of both parties becomes particularly important in framing the scope of the license and the rights the agreement confers to both parties.  

During the panel discussion, panelists also shared their points of view on how to increase the chance of a successful licensing or co-development collaboration. A global collaboration requires a very strong profile of the company. It requires companies to present mature, sophisticated, analytical offering material and will ensure that discussions produce a mutually satisfactory endpoint for all parties involved in the transaction. However, a common hurdle during the transaction is that some small firms may not think about global development at the very beginning, and it is too late to fix some documents when they want to go global. “Either right now or in the future, think about global development instead of just focusing on one country.” Kunyong Yang said. 

Panel 2: Cross-border Collaborations  

The second panel was moderated by Echo Hindle-Yang, the CEO and founder of MSQ Ventures. The discussion focused on cross-border collaborations. Jonathan Wang, the Chairman & CEO of Inmagene; Schuyler Schouten, the partner at Jones Day; Qiutang (Jennifer) Li, the CSO at Neurophth and Yong Ben, the drug development advisor and former CMO at Beigene attended the panel discussion. 

During this panel, the speakers shared their experiences and insights on how to seize opportunities for biotech companies in winter. There is no arguing that the last year has been a rocky one for biotech companies, but trends suggest that the sector is ready for an upswing. The revenue model works, innovation continues to bear fruit, and the need is ever-present.   

Schuyler Schouten, the partner at Jones Day, mentioned that although there is a lot of tension and turbulence in the world during the “biotech winter”, it is also a great time to think about where we are and where are we going. “It’s a time when a lot of people are under pressure, but a lot of people are also alerted to the value they are building.” he said. Schuyler suggested that for people pursuing opportunities for cross-border innovation, paying attention to the new regulations will be crucially important. 

Qiutang (Jennifer) Li, the CSO at Neurophth shared her opinion on the depressed financial fundraising. Although the raising amount is 60% down from peak time last year, she still feels hopeful as she could see the new drugs are coming soon. “I really think at least for the genetic circuit, they will continue to grow as long as positive clinical results come out.” she said. Jennifer also commented that the negative market trend will not last forever, and she is hopeful that the market will recover soon. 

Taken that China has a very competitive market landscape, prioritizing and focusing on the top assets will be beneficial. Moreover, Jennifer also mentioned that Chinese companies should always keep an eye on a wider market and seize the opportunity to enter the global market via partnership. 

Yong Ben, the venture partner at Eight Road Venture Capital, pointed out that the wintertime is always a good period to reflect the R&D more strategically and logically. From the R&D perspective, Ben said” Companies need to think how to spend the money at the right place to prioritize their assets”. Companies, especially small companies, need to learn how to focus on a parallelization strategy. Moreover, from an investment perspective, people need to reflect on what has happened in the past and be mindful in terms of how to spend the money. Navigating the emerging biotech landscape requires more than the ability to follow the herd—namely, an astute understanding and appreciation of the high science behind the investment. Finally, people should make unceasing progress and be well-prepared during the winter period.  

Moreover, Jonathan Wang, the Chairman & CEO of Inmagene also emphasized the importance of changing the mindset of investing money in the wintertime. Chasing deals without looking at the deals carefully will lead to failure in the competitive market. Therefore, picking a “winner” isn’t easy without deep technical expertise, people need to think strategically to stay warm in the winter.  

After the second panel, the event was concluded by presentations of Inmagene and ABM Therapeutics. In conclusion, even though the biopharma industry faces increasing competition for investor attention, there is much to be optimistic about. The collaboration model between west and east works, innovation continues to bear fruit, and the need is ever-present. The harsh winter will result in a hearty harvest. 

The success of this event is a result of the support of the participating companies. After the three meetings in New York, Boston, and San Diego, the next meeting stop will take place in Silicon Valley. We appreciate the participation and contribution of the attendees. We received highly positive feedback from the audience and will continue to boost cross-border collaboration, networking, knowledge share and communication in the global biopharma industry ecosystem.