BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Zai moves into drug discovery

October 24, 2015 1:49 AM UTC

Zai Laboratory Ltd. (Shanghai, China) opened an R&D center in Shanghai and announced a discovery and development partnership with Tsinghua University Immunology Institute. The moves expand the company's business model beyond in-licensing therapeutics that target diseases prevalent in China and greater Asia (see BioCentury, Sept. 22, 2014).

Zai said it is building an in-house discovery and development team to bolster its pipeline, which includes five candidates undergoing clinical testing in China. Also on Friday, the oncology and inflammation-focused company named James Yan EVP and head of early development and drug safety. Yan was head of drug safety evaluation at the Hutchison MediPharma Ltd. unit of Hutchison China MediTech Ltd. (LSE:HCM). Zai Chairman and CEO Samantha Du was founder and CEO of Hutchison MediPharma. ...