How Chi­na turned the ta­bles on bio­phar­ma's glob­al deal­mak­ing

Fen­lai Tan still gets chills think­ing about the dark­est day of his life.

Three out of eight lung can­cer pa­tients who re­ceived a ty­ro­sine ki­nase in­hibitor de­vel­oped by his com­pa­ny, Bet­ta Phar­ma, died in the span of a month. Tan, the chief med­ical of­fi­cer, was sum­moned to Peking Union Med­ical Col­lege Hos­pi­tal, where the head of the clin­i­cal tri­al de­part­ment told him that the tri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tors would be con­duct­ing an au­top­sy to see if the pa­tients had died of the dis­ease — they were all very sick by the time they en­rolled — or of in­ter­sti­tial lung dis­ease, a dead­ly side ef­fect tied to the TKI class that’s been re­port­ed in Japan.

To read Endpoints News become a free subscriber

Unlock this article instantly, along with access to limited free monthly articles and our suite of newsletters

SIGN UP LOG IN