Outline for China's Antibody Based Drugs Industry    

The antibody based drug is a highlight in the global drug market by its high specificity. Of which, monoclonal antibody based drug, the biggest variety in the biological medicines, has already been used successfully to treat cancers.

Huge market potential

Monoclonal antibody based drugs enjoyed the fastest growth in the biological medicine industry, particular in the period of 2001-2007, by its three exclusive therapy features - targeting, blocking and signal transmission. Now it has reportedly accounted for 35% of the world biological drugs market.
   China is late in this business and lags behind other countries. In R & D, not many innovations are reported in China. Many Chinese companies or organizations are still in the trial stage, a far way to the commercial production. As of 2009, China approved 11 monoclonal antibody based drugs to enter market, of which five are imported and six are developed by Chinese companies, all of them are used to treat cancers.
   In China the monoclonal antibody based drugs market was estimated to less than RMB100 million in 2008, compared with the grown market in other countries. It is estimated that the global antibody based drugs market will reach around US$26 billion in 2010 and the Chinese market is expected to reach RMB5 billion, a big jump. To catch up this opportunity, Chinese pharmaceutical players shall work hard to break through the technical bottleneck, helping this industry to develop stably and healthily.    

Related company - Chengdu Huasun Group Inc., Ltd.
(SZ: 000790)

The listed company makes profit from steel business and medicine business. In the fist half of 2009 Huasun recorded sale revenue of RMB186 million, 38.11% came from the medicine business. Monoclonal antibody based drug business is the core business for the company to acquire high growth. Licartin, a monoclonal antibody based drug made by Huasun, contributed to RMB7.6 million sales for the company in the first half of 2009, with a gross profit rate of 68.97%. Huasun's biggest shareholder the Medicine Research Institute of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine has a strong R&D team and has placed emphasis on antibody based drugs. As China's leading monoclonal antibody based drug manufacturing company, Huasun has a good prospect.

Great development potential for fully humanized monoclonal antibody

Till now, the development of monoclonal antibody based drugs has experienced four stages, and the latest is the fully humanized antibody based drug that is the most safe and effective monoclonal antibody to human so far. China is studying the second stage and third stage antibody, and there is no report related to the study of fully humanized antibody.  
   It is predicted that the fully humanized monoclonal antibody marks the development trend globally. Chinese researchers are working on this way.
   In ten years, the monoclonal antibody based drug is expected to be the champion in the aspect of biological medicines, with a pretty higher growth than the overall growth of the whole pharmaceutical industry. China's monoclonal antibody sector will surge benefited from the high expectation worldwide.