On January 3, 2019, the circle of friends of people in the domestic pharmaceutical industry was dominated by a blockbuster news about the merger of two pharmaceutical companies. One of the protagonists is Mabosi Biopharmaceutical (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., a leading talent company from Suzhou Industrial Park. When Dr. Qian Xueming, a student of the "Excellent Leaders Training and Empowerment Program" sponsored by the Suzhou Industrial Park Enterprise Development Service Center and hosted by the college and the founder of Mabos Biotech, recalled this experience, he said with emotion: "We were planning to start a business at that time. It’s a big head.”
A short sentence, but it carries a heavy weight. From "0" to "1", it is not only an innovation in the business model, but also an innovative move to superimpose superior resources between enterprises to enhance overall competitiveness. It also reflects that the integration of the Yangtze River Delta is worthy of regional cooperation and industrial empowerment. A major project for in-depth exploration.
Founded in 2012, Mabosi has established a focus on tumor immunotherapy, orthopedics and kidney disease based on its unique immune tolerance barrier breakthrough technology (IMTB). Its 12 product pipelines have continuously attracted great attention from peers and investors in the industry over the years. With clear project planning, long-term development strategies, and strong competitiveness in the field, the company has grown from a start-up team of 2 people to more than 300 people in 8 years. It has completed 3 rounds of financing so far, totaling US$237 million. After the merger, the company will have full-process integration capabilities in research, development, regulation and production.
In this year’s Jinji Lake Partner Program, Mabosi, as one of the park’s high-quality companies in the field of biomedicine, was included in the list of the first batch of companies included in the database. Qian Xue Dr. Ming also actively participated in the empowerment training-leadership training launched by Jinji Lake Partner Program. For enterprises, the implementation of new development concepts must not only be driven by innovation, but also cannot be separated from the docking and cooperation of resources from all parties. The Jinji Lake Partner Program hopes to use this platform to help partner enterprises extend new development tentacles and personalize Promote docking cooperation and accelerate the creation of park enterprises with world influence and a world-class business environment.
Dr. Qian Xueming, who once served as chief scientist at the global biotechnology giant Amgen, has a humble and open heart. He believes that in addition to establishing a technology platform, the most critical thing for a biopharmaceutical company with long-term operational capabilities is to have an excellent team. On the other hand, when it comes to recruiting, top talents are like investors. They invest the most glorious years of their lives in the company, and they must be looking for more than "money" and "options." This requires companies and their leaders to have the characteristics to attract talents. For example, "whether the project is valuable, whether the company is resilient, whether the boss is professional, tolerant, and capable of leadership...".
Dr. Qian Xueming compared his experience in the first two years after returning to China to "working as a worker". He also felt anxious about the progress of projects that he could not control, but he always It is believed that maintaining the academic insights and rapid response capabilities of the most cutting-edge technologies is the key to maintaining the "moat" of an enterprise.
In the following interview, you will see Dr. Qian Xueming, who has lived in the United States for 20 years, deconstructing the development trends of the biomedical industry and sharing his entrepreneurial experience.
Interviewee: Dr. Qian Xueming, CEO of Mabos, a national-level major talent introduction engineering expert, and a student participating in the college’s outstanding leader training and empowerment project
Interview/Written by: Xu Yanqian
Experience of standing on the shoulders of "giants"
Q1
The U.S. biomedical industry started early. As the former chief scientist of an industry leader, what changes did you see in the entire industry at that time?
Qian Xueming: From the late 1990s to my return to China in 2010, I have seen interesting changes in this industry in the United States in the past 20 years.
The first is the start from the development of small molecule oral drugs to biomedicine. Small molecule drugs often inhibit something that is in excess, and what they do is "subtraction." In the early days of biomedicine, what was done was "addition", studying proteins, such as EPO.
Before the human genome was completely cracked, some companies felt that there were unlimited drug targets for “addition”. Until the late 1990s, scientists invested in the human genome project. After the completion of gene sequencing, new targets continued to emerge. But we haven't found many targets among them that can be directly used to develop protein drugs. Therefore, in the late 1990s, Amgen began to transform into "subtraction". At that time, the American company Genentech, which focused on the field of oncology, was already at the forefront of "subtraction", with classic drugs such as Herceptin and Rituximab being released.
After 2010, the U.S. biomedical industry gradually underwent major changes, and there were fewer and fewer new targets that could be "subtracted", so the entire industry began to follow -on drug chase. Later, Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb in the United States developed PD-1 inhibitor drugs, and the landscape of tumor treatment suddenly changed. Since then, the industry has begun to pay attention to drugs that a small number of patients can respond better to the target, such as FGFR, ADC and other gradually refined and diversified fields.
In the process of industry changes, we found that if we only focus on the development of small molecule drugs, after the drug patent period expires, corporate sales will experience a cliff-like decline. In order to balance this, many traditional pharmaceutical companies have begun to invest in antibody drugs on a large scale. In order to expand more development space, Amgen, which focuses on biopharmaceuticals, went in the opposite direction and entered the field of small molecule drugs. This timely deployment established Amgen’s leadership position in the KRAS drug track.
We can see the diversified layout of giants in the industry and constantly explore new tracks, such as cell therapy and gene therapy.
Q2
What has working at Amgen brought to you?
Qian Xueming: On September 22, 1997, I joined Amgen. That year, Amgen began to search for and verify "subtractive" targets, and developed the company's first antibody-based drug, Prolia (desosomeumab). Prolia was approved for marketing in 2010, and I happened to leave Amgen that year.
From the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry process, biomedicine in the United States started early, and Amgen is the industry leader. The experience and ideas I have accumulated in the biopharmaceutical industry are all I learned this by standing on its shoulders - having worked for more than ten years, I have seen the entire process of a drug from project approval to launch.
Developing antibody drugs requires many considerations. It is critical to establish a technology platform, and the technologies required for each link must be understood. For Anjin, it can make rapid changes based on its past "additive" drug research and development technology.
Relying on past EPO R&D experience, Amgen used similar methods to establish CHO engineered cell lines. At the same time, it also had to ensure the safety of raw materials in every step such as amplification, production, purification, preparation, and canning, as well as reasonable pricing of drugs.
Q3
How are the tracks differentiated?
Qian Xueming: The role of the target in the disease is very important. The selection of targets has become a differentiating feature of each company. The so-called "each has its own share of the hills." For example, Genentech focuses on the field of oncology, and its achievements include Avastin, atezolizumab, etc.; Amgen focuses on orthopedics and metabolic diseases, and its achievements include denosumab, romosuzumab, etc.
Class Discussion
"Wasteland" and "Opportunity"
Q4
After returning to China, what made you think about starting a business?
Qian Xueming: After I returned to China with my family in 2010, domestic biomedicine was still a "barren land". But looking at it from another angle, there are opportunities everywhere.
When I first returned to China, I could not find anyone who was developing new antibody drugs. In order to support my family, I came to Beijing Shengnuo Gene to "work" in the first two years and helped build the R&D team. When the company's project reached the second phase of clinical trials, I decided to leave because I wanted to do my own specialty - first-in-class antibody drug development. So I returned to Suzhou from Beijing, thinking that I would build a "small workshop" no matter what, and that's how Mabos Biotech was born.
I am very grateful to Suzhou Industrial Park. The park has a great talent policy, which allowed me to get start-up capital and house purchase subsidies. These are of great help to entrepreneurs who are just starting out. Based on this help, several friends and I managed to get the first angel investment of 3 million yuan, and started to build our own laboratory, obtain environmental protection qualification certificates, etc. At that time, Mabos's office was only 350 square meters, and "every brick" had to be designed by ourselves. I remember the decoration cost very clearly, which was 274,000 yuan.
Q5
How does a start-up team get started?
Qian Xueming: At first, my team only had two people, one technician and one administrative assistant, and the finance was outsourced.
Six months after the company was founded, my team began to use its own technology to take on projects. Because the technology needs to be verified through projects. After the verification reaches a certain stage, we can promote the technology and tell everyone that we have produced so many interesting antibodies against the targets we are researching. After that, some companies came to ask us if we could provide CRO services, and we were able to support ourselves by providing services, plus subsidy funds provided by the government.
In 2015, my team was honored to receive support from Eli Lilly Asia Fund and began to cooperate with Hengrui Pharmaceuticals. The net profit that year exceeded 1 million yuan, and my team was "alive".
Q6
What was the opportunity for Mabosi to change its focus to biopharmaceuticals instead of becoming a CRO organization?
Qian Xueming: At that time, WuXi AppTec was already developing very well. In fact, if I don't raise money, I can transfer several projects I'm working on and realize tens of millions. But I feel that maybe CRO is not what I am best at - I have to support many employees and work hard to deliver and connect with partners. On the other hand, at that time, the PD-1 track was very popular at home and abroad, and just doing CRO seemed to be a "little effort".
I am not a stickler for rules. I think that only by having an exploratory spirit, strong curiosity, and like to follow the forefront of my field can I seize opportunities. Moreover, humans have 20,000-30,000 genomes, and we currently use at most 1,000-2,000 genomes, accounting for less than 10 of the total. This means that 90% of the "gold mines" have not yet been mined, and antibody drugs still have great potential.
My goal is to build a technology platform that can develop patent-protected and highly druggable antibody drugs. In other words, as long as a certain gene is found to play an important role in a certain disease, this platform has the ability to immediately develop antibody drugs targeting that target.
Among the projects on hand at that time, one was first-in-class and two were fast-follow. However, follow-up innovation focuses on the speed of project advancement, while outsourcing to other CRO teams cannot control the speed, and profits may be greatly reduced after listing. So I connected with Yi'an Jishi, who is good at technology and production. In this way, R&D, technology, clinical practice, and production became a whole line and became a platform with integrated capabilities.
Q7
In terms of the goals you have set, what qualities are needed to build such a technology platform?
Qian Xueming: We must be very sensitive to the most cutting-edge technologies and disease areas, pay attention to academic trends in the field of biology, and find the right targets. This is actually our pharmaceutical industry. very important point.
If the target is not found correctly, there is an 80% chance of failure. Even if the final drug is the best, of the highest quality, and of the fastest clinical speed, it will be in vain. Of course, once you have the right target, the market share of the finished drug is another matter that needs to be discussed.
How to build a team of 300 people
Q8
For drug research and development, recruiting cutting-edge talents It is quite important. Mabosi has grown from a team of 2 people to a team of more than 300 people. How does it attract talents?
Qian Xueming: First of all, whether it can provide talents with matching wages and returns; secondly, companies need to have resilience and adaptability, and cannot just "back off"; thirdly, talents not only value wages and returns, but also You need platforms and projects to realize your own values ??and ideals.
Eli Lilly Asia Fund has also brought us talent resources, such as our chief medical officer Dr. Xu Li, consultant Dr. Su Ling, etc. An excellent main team will further attract more talents in process production and clinical fields.
For those at the helm of a company, they also need to have core qualities that attract talents in order to build an excellent team. The first trait is honesty. You must understand your own strengths as well as your own shortcomings, so that you can know what kind of people can help you. The second trait is professionalism. You must have extremely professional people in your own field. Knowledge reserve; the third characteristic is an open mind. The person in charge must be able to listen to the opinions of professionals and not take their own interests too seriously. The talents invited are willing to contribute the most glorious years of their lives to the company. year; the fourth trait is leadership, which includes courage, the ability to build a drug pipeline, organizational skills, and the ability to build corporate infrastructure, etc.
Only an excellent team can promote the long-term and vital development of an enterprise.
Q9
What is the most difficult thing you have encountered in the process of starting a business?
Qian Xueming: The most difficult time was in 2017.
On an important project, I spent money to hire an outsourcing team, but the other party did not give me the progress I deserved on time, and what my team needed to complete had already been done. I feel very painful, because I have no control over this matter, and in the middle of the project, whether I replace such a CRO or not, I will suffer a loss, because the delay directly affects the advancement speed and final value of drug research and development, and even affects the The next round of financing will lag behind others in the biomedical field.
This incident also prompted me to merge with Yi'an Jishi. R&D and technology are like our two legs. One of them is kidnapped, even if the other leg wants to run away It's impossible to go fast.