HLB, which holds the global rights of
Rivoceranib, has officially received 50 million CNY (about 9.4 billion KRW) in
royalties for Rivoceranib (Chinese name: Aitan®) from China's Hengrui
Pharmaceutical.
There have been many cases where domestic
bio companies have received down payments or milestones through technology
transfer, but there are few cases where they have received sales-based
royalties for commercially available anticancer drugs.
HLB's royalty received this time is for
sales of HLB's sales of Rivoceranib as a gastric cancer treatment in 2020, and
is fully accounted for HLB's operating profit.
After being approved as a gastric cancer
treatment, Rivoceranib has been approved as a secondary treatment for liver
cancer in December 2020 and has been on sale in earnest since 2021, the company
predicts that royalty income will continue to increase due to increased sales
in China.
Hengrui Pharmaceutical is currently
undergoing phase 3 clinical trials for non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian
cancer, and breast cancer.
The reason HLB receives royalties from
Hengrui Pharmaceutical is that HLB holds the global rights of Rivoceranib, an
anticancer drug. In September 2020, HLB signed a transfer agreement with
"Advenchen Nanjing," a Chinese corporation owned by G. Paul Chen, CEO
of the U.S. Advenchen Research Institute and original developer, for global
patents of "SFFT Developing."
HLB plans to push for NDA procedures for
gastric cancer at the end of this year and quickly complete phase 2 clinical
trials for benign cystic cancer, which has been completed patient recruitment,
to proceed with the FDA's application process.
A HLB official said, "Rivoceranib is a
groundbreaking new drug that has sold more than 1 trillion KRW as a late-stage
gastric cancer treatment in China for seven years, and hundreds of clinical
papers on various cancers have been observed every year to prove its efficacy."
HLB announced its goal of releasing five anticancer drugs in the global market within five years at the IR event in 2019.