SAN ANTONIO – UT Health San Antonio announced a landmark licensing deal worth millions with a Chinese pharmaceutical company Friday morning.
AlaMab Therapeutics Inc., a subsidiary of CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, will pay $4.5 million to UT Health San Antonio and UT Health in Houston to license two antibodies.
William Henrich, president of UT Health San Antonio, said the antibodies were produced in the laboratories of Jean Jiang.
"They are developed to treat spinal cord injuries, which oftentimes cannot be repaired and are often irreversible. And then the other treatment is for bone metastasis of breast cancer. When cancer spreads to bone, this would be a treatment for that,” Henrich said.
The new deal could generate more than $114 million dollars for UT Health San Antonio and UT Health in Houston over the next several years.
"As the drugs are developed, they have to be shown to be safe in animals, and then in humans. And then after they’ve been shown to be safe, they are tried in what’s called phase one, phase two and phase three trials,” Henrich said. “These are trials first that determine the dose in humans, determine the effectiveness in humans and then determine that it’s much better to do this than using a placebo drug. So there are certain regulatory milestones you have to reach for the drug to meet commercial standards.”
Hendrich said every milestone that is reached will result in scientific publication, peer review and then will be examined by the entire medical community.
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