Re­cent­ly I told read­ers about a new part­ner­ship we struck in Chi­na, one that would help il­lu­mi­nate our on­line news cov­er­age of bio­phar­ma in an area of the world that has at­tract­ed a break­through lev­el of in­ter­est this year. Now we’re tak­ing it a step fur­ther, invit­ing End­points News read­ers to Chi­na for our in­au­gur­al 2-day in­dus­try con­fer­ence we’re host­ing in Shang­hai: BI­IS — US-Chi­na Bio­phar­ma In­no­va­tion & In­vest­ment Sum­mit.

We’re host­ing this event be­cause it’s an ab­solute­ly crit­i­cal time for US com­pa­nies to de­vel­op their own Chi­na strat­e­gy, both for the re­gion­al deals they want as well as col­lab­o­ra­tions with a new gen­er­a­tion of Chi­nese re­searchers and ex­ec­u­tives.

Along with our part­ners in Chi­na, Pharm­Cube, we’ve in­vit­ed a group of transpa­cif­ic in­dus­try VIPs to head­line this two-day event, sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 22 and 23 at the Four Sea­sons in Shang­hai’s Pudong dis­trict.

Saman­tha Du

Just a few of the in­dus­try lead­ers we’ve con­firmed for the sum­mit are Saman­tha Du, the founder and CEO of Zai Lab; Jonathan Wang, co-founder of Or­biMed Asia; and Vivek Ra­maswamy, the founder and CEO of Roivant Sci­ences. New speak­ers are be­ing added fre­quent­ly, which you can check out on the event web­site here.

Vivek Ra­maswamy

Over the past year we’ve seen the Chi­na biotech scene boom with bil­lions of dol­lars in new in­vest­ment cash pour­ing in­to a host of star­tups. Most of these new-breed com­pa­nies are turn­ing first to fill­ing the tech gap that sep­a­rates Chi­na from the West, but you can al­ready see pipelines be­ing grown with new drugs that will be aimed at a world mar­ket.

Jonathan Wang

This two-day sched­ule will be packed with pan­els and pre­sen­ta­tions aimed at giv­ing you an in­side look at the key play­ers in Chi­na and the US, and the drugs that are now fill­ing the coun­try’s fast-grow­ing pipeline.

Like our pop­u­lar an­nu­al events at JP Mor­gan and BIO, and the up­com­ing UK R&D sum­mit in Lon­don, the Chi­na-US sum­mit will be helmed by End­points ed­i­tor and founder John Car­roll, who’s been study­ing the Chi­nese biotech mar­ket over the course of his 16 years of bio­phar­ma cov­er­age.

We’ve been chron­i­cling the reg­u­la­to­ry, fi­nan­cial, and sci­en­tif­ic trends that have led to this in­flec­tion point in Chi­na’s bio­phar­ma scene. And BI­IS is the event where you can wit­ness the dy­nam­ics and meet the peo­ple in­volved first­hand. We hope to see you there. Check out the event and reg­is­ter at this link: #BI­IS18 Event Site

— Ar­salan Arif is the founder and pub­lish­er of End­points News. You can reach him at aa@end­pointsnews.com or @AKAarsalan on Twit­ter.

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.

Novartis is calling off a UK-based trial for Leqvio in the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with high cholesterol, the company confirmed on Wednesday.

The Swiss pharma giant made the decision after “careful evaluation,” a spokesperson told Endpoints News via email. The trial, dubbed ORION-17, was planned in partnership with England’s National Health Service (NHS) and was part of the company’s strategy to establish Leqvio as a standard of care in cardiovascular disease management.