The year 2021 is a harvest year for Shanghai BRL Medicine Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as BRL Medicine).In terms of clinical transformation, the first patient of BRL Medicine’s new-generation UCART therapy in cooperation with the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine was cured and discharged from hospital. At the same time, the clinical research of gene therapy for thalassaemia carried out in cooperation with the 923 Hospital of the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force also brought good news. So far, four children have gotten rid of blood transfusion with the help of gene editing technology and a total of six children in China have said goodbye to thalassaemia in this way. BRL Medicine’s development has also been highly recognized by the industry, about to complete nearly 400 million yuan of financing of B round. This year, it has successively won the Annual Future Medical TOP100 • Innovative Medicine List TOP100 and the award of 2021 China Biological Innovation Drugs with Most Growth of the Year.
Another recognition! BRL Medicine won“the award of 2021 China Bio-innovative Drugs with the Most Growth of the Year”
In the fruitful golden autumn of October, the think tank research department of Shanghai International School of Chief Technology Officer(Hereinafter referred to as the “CTO School”) interviewed Mr. Xi Zaixi, CEO of BRL Medicine and listened to him talk about the current situation of the biomedical industry, development goals of BRL Medicine, cooperation mode between schools and enterprises and his own reflections and experiences in managing the enterprise. Let's walk into the BRL Medicine and listen to its story.
01 The third generation of drugs are making steady progress and the domestic market is booming
Major health events put a spotlight on our industry.The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 has brought attention to hygiene and health worldwide. In this context, the biopharmaceutical industry has been given great importance and there is also a growing demand for high-tech cures for diseases. When the whole society starts to pay attention to biomedicine, the industry will enter a period of rapid development. Mr. Xi Zaixi particularly highlighted the policy advantages of China. China allows conducting clinical trials initiated by researchers, that is to say, the new technology can first go through research clinical trials in hospitals. Besides, the technology keeps improving and iterated in the process, greatly improving the efficiency of drug development, increasing the success rate of drug development, and shortening the marketing time of drugs. This is a policy dividend that most countries do not have.
Mr. Xi vividly explained the category segmentation and technology iteration in the current pharmaceutical industry. Figuratively speaking, if small molecule chemical drugs are considered as the first-generation drugs in the first pharmaceutical revolution, then targeted drugs and antibody drugs are second-generation drugs and cellular and gene drugs are third-generation drugs.For the first generation drugs, we lagged behind Europe and the United States for 30 to 50 years, for Chinese enterprises had few innovative drugs; for the second generation of drugs, we lagged behind Europe and the US for one or two decades. In recent years, a number of excellent Chinese enterprises have begun to emerge. For the third generation cell and gene drugs, China is only three to five years behind Europe and America.With the high attention and support of the Chinese government in recent years, we have made great efforts across the country and China’s whole ecology including relevant industrial policies, market environment and financing has become increasingly mature. China's cytogenetic drug companies have gradually had the ability to lead the world together with the United States.
At the same time, although the pharmaceutical industry is characterized by high risk and long cycle, with the gradual integration of the domestic market with the international market, China’s capital is becoming more and more mature and many early start-up projects can get financing. China’s biomedical industry is booming. On the one hand, we are constantly learning advanced international experience and ideas; on the other hand, we are also giving full play to our own characteristics and advantages to benefit global patients and contribute China's strength.
02 Focus on developing internationalization, help innovative medicine “go global”
BRL Medicine was re-organized in 2016. Relying on the powerful gene editing platform, it has prospectively laid out the innovative generation of CAR-T cell drugs and gene drugs for genetic diseases, which has also become the competitive advantage of BRL Medicine. Just as its corporate mission says -- “Lead innovation with gene editing technology, develop breakthrough therapies to benefit all mankind”.
In the 2021 Shanghai (Minhang) Biomedical Industry Innovation Summit, Professor Liu Mingyao, president of BRL Medicine, once said: “In cell therapy and gene therapy, whether in basic research or clinical transformation, BRL Medicine has always been in a leading position internationally”.However, BRL Medicine is not complacent, but has a strong“sense of crisis”. The update and iteration of the industry is always very fast and especially the competition of the high-tech industry is racing against time. “We have to turn innovative technologies into medicines faster and better and deliver them to the hands of cancer patients around the world fast to benefit patients, which is what we are going to do”. “Three first-in-class products that have been clinically successful in the world must be quickly applied, registered and marketed globally to truly benefit patients and fulfill their value”, said Xi.
When talking about the main tasks and difficulties facing enterprises at present, Xi mentioned the concept of global talent.To become the world's leading cell gene pharmaceutical company is the vision of BRL Medicine and the globalization strategy naturally brings the development needs for global talents. To enable global professionals to do global things is Xi’s layout of the strategic goals of enterprise development at this stage. The pace of hiring the right talents cannot catch up with the speed of industry development, and that's going to be a challenge for a long time”.As cell and gene therapy belongs to an emerging industry, the total number of talents in the industry is limited, but the cell and gene industry is developing rapidly, which leads to a serious imbalance between the supply and demand of talents and an extremely fierce competition for talents. Even with high salaries, suitable talents may not be hired. The core culture of the full-member partnership of BRL Medicine creates good conditions for the company to absorb global talents with entrepreneurial spirit.
03 As professional talents are scarce, school-enterprise cooperation needs to be targeted
About the talent problem, Xi always has his own views. “In the pharmaceutical industry, we are very short of industrial-end professionals.” Only by understanding how to make drugs can we provide more targeted services for enterprises. For talent cultivation in this respect, it seems that China is not perfect or that there is still more room for development. Xi said: “The construction of the medicine colleges should be future-oriented. For example, the industry should be sub-divided into more refined fields such as cell gene therapy, which is good for the development of the industry and universities.”At present, most of the medicine colleges in China have relatively basic education in the pharmaceutical part and only few of them are able to dock the professional subdivision fields well, which is exactly the important task of university-enterprise joint projects.
University-enterprise cooperation needs to be more targeted and keep pace with the development of the industry. When there is a higher talent demand in the market, the key to solve the problem is whether or not the supply of professional talents can be met quickly. This also requires universities to be innovative, because it takes a long period to see the results, which is also a huge challenge for universities. At the same time, not only industrial professionals, but also management personnel need in-depth docking. He illustrated the executive training program of the ECNU Shanghai International School of Chief Technology Officer (hereinafter referred to as CTO School).In addition to training in entrepreneurship and leadership, if it can continue professional subdivision in biological medicine and cultivate professional middle and high level talents in drug R&D project management, clinical research, drug continuous manufacturing, quality control, etc., it will be more focused and better meet the needs of national strategic industry development.
While exploring and innovating ways of university-enterprise cooperation, the CTO School combined the needs of national strategic industries and pioneering enterprises to provide practical help for the industry. In this regard, Professor He Jiaxun, executive dean of the CTO School, also stressed “exploring an excellent model for the development of the whole industry in a realistic and not a formalistic way.
04 Promote entrepreneurship, foster a good enterprise atmosphere
As the CEO of BRL Medicine, Mr. Xi Zaixi has been striving to pursue a higher level of learning and improvement, constantly enriching his management knowledge and ideas and expanding his international vision to be a good pilot of BRL Medicine. In the interview, Xi told about the construction of BRL Medicine from various angles, in which he constantly stressed the “entrepreneurship” and also shared with us the entrepreneurship in his eyes the “entrepreneurship,” and also shared with us the entrepreneurship in his eyes – Entrepreneurial spirit, innovative spirit, adventurous spirit and altruistic spirit.
Entrepreneurial spirit is the most important quality in Xi’s opinion. Outstanding entrepreneurs often have a strong sense of mission, personal heroic dream, excellent leadership, firm belief and lifelong curiosity. Entrepreneurs should have a sense of mission to start a business and work, not taking making money as their sole purpose. They should have a dream beyond profit and a sense of social responsibility, as well as a firm belief and perseverance. The innovative spirit is the core soul of entrepreneurship, which is ubiquitous. It is relatively easy to go from 1 to 1.1. The key is to have the thinking and action power to go from 0 to 1. Changing the constraints and making the impossible possible is the essence of the spirit of innovation. The spirit of adventure is reflected in the decision-making and judgment of entrepreneurs. Scientific decision-making can reach standard answers through figures and models, while entrepreneurial decision-making is based on the entrepreneur's intuition, imagination and judgment of the future. Finally, the spirit of altruism is the guarantee for the long-term development of enterprises. The core of altruism is a win-win situation, which is to think for more people, respect heaven and love others and contribute to the development of mankind, the country and the industry. Only in this way can sustainable development be achieved.
President Xi attaches great importance to the cultivation of entrepreneurship. People are hard to be changed, but they can be influenced. I have been committed to cultivating the entrepreneurship of partners, and every partner in the full-member partnership system must have such awareness and spirit.
In addition, Xi also attaches great importance to the entrepreneurial atmosphere of BRL Medicine. “We try to turn the employment relationship with employees to a partnership, which is reflected in making light of attendance and the results- oriented work style. Fairness, trust and respect make businesses more harmonious and stable and also help employees improve their enthusiasm and sense of belonging, not working for the sake of work, but struggling for the common great cause.”BRL Medicine also often organizes employees to conduct learning and training activities. BRL Medicine is a learning organization and everyone has the opportunity for continuous learning and promotion. The enterprise is also equipped with relatively complete recreational facilities and shared space, and the modern and fashionable office environment is impressive, full of vitality.
We believe that in the future, BRL Medicine will continue to achieve the innovation and breakthrough of cell gene medicine under the great mission of leading innovation, developing breakthrough therapy and benefiting mankind by gene editing technology. Good entrepreneurial atmosphere and advanced science and technology will make BRL Medicine more competitive, go out of China, go international, edit the hope of life and become the world's leading biomedical enterprise!
Source | CTO School Think Tank Team
Authors | ZHU Wangning, ZHANG Zhening
Editor | XIA Mei