On March 18, 2023, Innolake Biopharm, a company founded just two years ago, was granted the award of “Enterprise of Innovation Breakthrough in 2022” at the 8th Enmore Bio Conference. The winner of this award was selected by the EBC commission and the experts panel based on evaluation of companies in the industry from two perspectives, i.e. the overall performance in 2022 (the company fundamental, position in industry, innovation value of projects, business model, revenue, etc.) and its competitiveness in the industry (comprehensive background, brand influence, management competencies and the team of core experts).
On March 21st, another good news came to Innolake Biopharm: The National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has implicitly accepted Innolake’s IND application for clinical trials of its A2aR antagonist (R&D code: ILB-2109) combined with anti PD-1 mAbs in the treatment of advanced solid tumors, indicating that the project has entered the important stage of clinical development. The project team will work closely with the clinical investigators and other partners to implement innovative development strategy for drug combination therapy and advance clinical trials in order to bring the new immunotherapy to cancer patients as soon as possible.
Confronted by the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic and dramatic deterioration of macro and industry environment, Innolake Biopharm still made great progress in 2022. In addition to focusing on the pre-clinical and clinical development of key pipeline assets, Innolake continuously improved the capacity and productivity of its core technology platforms and reinforced the layout of the early-stage assets. It actively explores and expands drug combination therapy with local and global top innovative pharmaceutical enterprises and has established collaboration through out-licensing and co-development options.
In addition to two in-house technology platforms of large and small molecules, the company also established ADC technology platform with core intellectual property rights in 2022 and explored a series of innovative products. Among them, CMC development of its first best-in-class ADC product (ILB-3101) has been accomplished. Its first patent has been granted and its IND application will be submitted this year. The R&D department also developed several new PCCs in 2022. For example, the PCC validation of a first-in-class small molecule candidate (ILB-1101) targeting a new epigenetics target, has been completed. ILB-1101 can effectively inhibits tumor cells proliferation and metastasis in the animal model, whether by monotherapy or in combination with other therapies.
Although many other companies’ clinical trials were seriously impacted by the recurrence of COVID-19 in 2022, as the pioneer in the clinical development of A2aR antagonist in China, Innolake Biopharm still successfully initiated the phase Ia trial of a selective A2aR antagonist (ILB-2109) together with top KOLs as scheduled and preliminary superior efficacy signals were observed.
Innolake team also successfully received IND approval of CD40 mAb injection (ILB-2101), the company's first biologic innovative drug candidate, which was completed from sequence to NMPA IND approval within 14 months. It fully reflected Innolake's high efficiency in the execution during all key phases of the innovative drug development.