30 November 2015
Dr Peng Wang, the Corporate Vice President and President of Research and Development of Yabao Pharmaceuticals, one of China’s largest pharmaceutical companies, will be in Adelaide this week to seal the deal on a unique drug development partnership with the University of South Australia.
Announced in September, the partnership, led in SA by the head of UniSA’s Centre for Drug Discovery, Professor Shudong Wang, underpins a new, joint drug discovery laboratory dedicated to developing and commercialising innovative pharmaceuticals, focusing on the treatment of cancer.
The agreement between Yabao and UniSA will be formalised at City West campus on November 30 at 4pm.
Welcoming Dr Wang to Australia, UniSA Vice Chancellor Professor David Lloyd says the new relationship with Yabao is a great example of transnational enterprise.
“The challenge of cancer is a global challenge and it makes the best sense, for those dedicated to beating the disease, to find ways to productively collaborate on cures,” Prof Lloyd says.
“What better partners than Yabao, one of China’s most successful pharmaceutical companies and Dr Peng Wang, someone with 25 years of international experience in drug development and a member of China’s FDA Advisory Board.
“We are delighted to be working together and our aspiration for the partnership is to bring new cancer-beating drugs and treatments into the market as soon as we can so that more people will survive and thrive after cancer.”
Dr Wang has been made an Adjunct Professor in UniSA’s School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences and during his visit will deliver a guest lecture - Pharmaceutical R&D in China: the Current Status and Future Directions.
He will be spending time in UniSA laboratories and getting to know researchers, partners and colleagues at UniSA.
Background
Yabao Pharmaceutical Co. (Shanghai Stock Exchange 600351) is a leading China pharmaceutical company with fully integrated development, manufacturing, and commercialization in China. Yabao is recently pursuing strategic development of innovative pharmaceuticals in addition to Yabao's well-established business in modern traditional Chinese medicines and chemical generics. In addition to strong clinical and regulatory capabilities, Yabao has strong capabilities in formulation and API production and meets good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements with a manufacturing site approved by the U.S. FDA and another by a European agency. For more information about Yabao Pharmaceutical Co., please visit www.yabao.com.cn
UniSA’s Centre for Drug Discovery and Development
Research at the Centre is directed towards the discovery and development of new drugs for a range of therapeutic applications, particularly cancer. This involves multidisciplinary approaches using structure-guided medicinal chemistry, target-driven cellular and animal pharmacological evaluations. The combination of capabilities in computational drug design, medicinal chemistry, cellular and animal pharmacology and toxicology in the single cohesive research centre holds the promise for rapid advancement of drug discovery and development in an effort to identify drug candidates and novel therapeutic targets.
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli office +61 883020966 mob 0418823673 email michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au
