Pfizer, which once broke through the trillion-dollar revenue mark, is seeking new growth points for its performance after the reduction of COVID-19 business dividends. Now, the "pharmaceutical giant" has set its sights on the field of oncology. The Chinese market has always been one of Pfizer's strategic focus markets globally, and the company is expanding its oncology business in China.
Recently, Wang Yu, Vice President of Pfizer China and General Manager of the Oncology Business Unit, said in an exclusive interview with First Financial Daily that in the 35 years since entering China, the company has brought 15 oncology products to Chinese patients, covering lung cancer, breast cancer, urinary system tumors, hematological tumors, digestive system tumors, and other areas. Pfizer China's goal is to launch more than 15 new oncology products or new indications in China by 2030, which means that new drugs launched in China should be developed, submitted for market approval, and launched globally as synchronously as possible.
In 2022, Pfizer became the first pharmaceutical company in the world to achieve a revenue of one trillion dollars, thanks to the huge sales of COVID-19 vaccines and oral drugs. However, from 2023, as the COVID-19 pandemic became normalized, the demand for COVID-19 products has greatly decreased. In 2023, Pfizer achieved a global revenue of $58.5 billion, of which oncology business revenue was $11.6 billion.
In this year, Pfizer spent $43 billion to acquire Seagen, a company specializing in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). It was also at the end of this year that Pfizer began to reorganize its oncology business and established an Oncology Business Unit at the global level.
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At the beginning of this year, during the Global Oncology Innovation Day, Pfizer set a goal to launch at least 8 major anti-cancer products by 2030, with new oncology products accounting for two-thirds of the total oncology business revenue. The company will focus on three core technology platforms in the field of oncology, including small molecule drugs, antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, and other immunotherapies, and will focus more on major cancer types, including breast cancer, urogynecological cancers, hematological tumors, thoracic cancers, and head and neck cancers.
After the global adjustment, Pfizer China's oncology business also welcomed a new leader, Wang Yu, who returned to Pfizer in this wave of adjustments.
She said that Pfizer has accumulated a lot in the research and development of targeted drugs. With the cooperation with high-tech platforms like Seagen, the company is developing the next generation of ADC technology platforms, aiming to find new targets and differentiated carriers, and exploring innovative biological agents and new drug combinations. The company hopes that the ADC drugs launched in the future can more accurately attack the corresponding tumor cells and reduce adverse reactions, bringing more benefits to patients and helping patients achieve high-quality long-term survival.
In Wang Yu's view, there are still many unmet needs in the prevention and treatment of cancer in China. Taking lung cancer as an example, although the survival rate of lung cancer in China has been greatly improved, there is still a gap from the main goal of "the overall 5-year survival rate of cancer reaching 46.6% by 2030" in the "Healthy China Action - Cancer Prevention and Treatment Action Implementation Plan (2023-2030)." Lung cancer still ranks first in the incidence and mortality of malignant tumors in China.
"The incidence of lung cancer in China is very high. Nearly 2.5 million new cases of lung cancer occur globally each year, and the number of cases in China reaches 1.06 million. From this perspective, the number of lung cancer patients in China is very large, and lung cancer is also a key disease area that Pfizer is deeply cultivating in China. Our third-generation ALK inhibitor has already allowed patients with ALK-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer to achieve more than 5 years without disease progression, which is an unprecedented breakthrough in the field of solid tumors. In the future, the company will further focus on lung cancer, breast cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer, and other high-incidence and high-occurrence tumors in China, focus on clinical treatment gaps, introduce more innovative drugs, and provide more treatment options for Chinese patients," said Wang Yu.
In fact, the field of oncology in China is also an area of fierce competition among multinational pharmaceutical companies and domestic Chinese pharmaceutical companies. Under this background, how does Pfizer break through?"As a pharmaceutical company, we hope to support the standardized and homogeneous development of cancer diagnosis and treatment in China, promote early screening, early diagnosis, and early treatment of single diseases, as well as standardized treatment and standardized disease management, to enhance the level of homogeneous cancer diagnosis and treatment. In the past, we have cooperated with relevant departments to help promote the construction of a four-level diagnosis and treatment system for single diseases, and we will continue to support and assist various measures for cancer prevention and control in China, and raise the public's awareness of cancer prevention and resistance," said Wang Yu.
Wang Yu also stated that as breast cancer, lung cancer, and other tumors gradually transition to chronic diseases, the disease management scenarios faced by Chinese cancer patients have become more diverse, and their needs have become more individualized. The company will join hands with more industry partners to support the improvement of patients' health literacy, multi-level medical security, and the construction of more efficient disease management.
Regarding cooperation with local innovative pharmaceutical companies, Wang Yu said, "The company is building momentum."
"In fact, since 2021, the company has started some commercial cooperation with several domestic Biotech companies. In the future, the company may look for partners for collaborative cooperation in directions such as lung cancer, breast cancer, urothelial cancer, and prostate cancer. I also believe that in the future, research and development in the field of oncology will lead to more cooperation, and the form of relying solely on a single company for research and development may gradually be replaced by diversified cooperation, such as joint research and development, and jointly completing different stages of clinical registration. This can more efficiently address clinical pain points and provide more solutions for patients," said Wang Yu.
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