MEETING ABSTRACT Open Access

Developing innovative targeted therapiesfor ChinaBahija Jallal

From 2012 Sino-American Symposium on Clinical and Translational Medicine (SAS-CTM)Shanghai, China. 27-29 June 2012

BackgroundMedImmune is the biologics business unit of AstraZenecawith a mission of helping patients with significant unmetmedical need by developing innovative medicines. MedIm-mune has a rich pipeline across five therapeutic areasincluding oncology, respiratory, inflammatory and autoim-munity, infectious diseases, neurosciences, cardiovascularand gastrointestinal diseases. To realize our vision of per-sonalized healthcare—treating the right patient with theright drug at the right dose, we are applying cutting edgetools such as next-gen sequencing, circulating tumor cellsand advanced PK/PD modelling across the pipeline.

Materials and methodsFundamental to our goal of developing personalizedhealthcare is gaining deep understanding of diseases acrossdifferent populations and specifically in Asians. To thisend, we have formed partnerships with Chinese academicinstitutions, government agencies and industry partners,and have a history of working with scientists/physicians inChina to develop medications that target the Asian/Chinese patient population. For example, the AstraZenecaproduct IRESSA (gefitinib), is already frontline therapy inChina for the treatment of patients with locally advancedor metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with an activatingmutation in the EGFR gene.

ResultsMost recently we set up an exciting collaboration with theShanghai Chest and Renji Hospitals to develop a richlyannotated database of lung cancer and hepatocellular can-cer patient samples to aid in identifying novel drug targetsand developing therapeutic strategies to aid patients. Thispresentation will provide examples in our pipeline that

give us reasons to believe in such approaches, e.g. a type Iinterferon gene signature for an anti-IFN-alpha or anti-IFNAR monoclonal antibody in patients with systemiclupus erythematosus.

ConclusionsMedImmune is committed to helping Chinese patientswith significant unmet medical need and we believe colla-borations with leading Chinese PIs and innovation are keyto our mission.

Published: 17 October 2012

doi:10.1186/1479-5876-10-S2-A3Cite this article as: Jallal: Developing innovative targeted therapiesfor China. Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10(Suppl 2):A3.

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Correspondence: Jallalb@medimmune.comResearch and Development, MedImmune, LLC, Gaithersburg, MD, 20878,USA

Jallal Journal of Translational Medicine 2012, 10(Suppl 2):A3http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/10/S1/A3

© 2012 Jallal; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction inany medium, provided the original work is properly cited.