Hutchmed (China) is evaluating supply-chain options for a blood-cancer drug recently approved by Beijing to mitigate impact from the ongoing US-China trade war, according to its chief.
Last month the company won conditional nationwide approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) to sell tazemetostat, after it completed a phase two bridging study involving 42 patients.
The approval is for follicular-lymphoma patients whose cancer has a mutation called EZH2 and who either failed to respond to treatment or whose cancer has recurred after therapy. The mutation exists in 20 to 25 per cent of Chinese patients with the cancer, Hutchmed CEO and chief scientific officer Su Weiguo said. In 2022, new follicular lymphoma cases totalled 78,000 in the US and 81,000 in China, according to Hutchmed.
Tazemetostat is the first EZH2 inhibitor approved by the NMPA, Su said. Hutchmed aims to conduct separate trials in China to potentially expand the drug’s usage to patients with solid cancers.
“In recent years, drugs to inhibit EZH2 have been studied globally for treating multiple solid tumours such as triple-negative breast, ovarian and prostate cancers,” he said. “We plan to kick off similar studies on tazemetostat among Chinese patients with solid tumours.”
Tazemetostat is currently manufactured in the US and is likely to be subject to tariffs when imported into China, so Hutchmed is evaluating options to minimise the cost impact.
