JHL and Sanofi plan to sell biosimilars outside China

07-Dec-2016 - Last updated on 07-Dec-2016 at 11:32 GMT

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Sanofi and JHL Biotech will sell biosimilars in markets outside China in the long term according to the French drug firm.

Sanofi and JHL announced they had teamed-up to develop biosimilars this week. The initial focus will be commercialization of JHL1101, the latter’s candidate version of Rituxan (rituximab) in China.

Under the agreement, JHL will make the drug at its facilities in Wuhan and Sanofi will commercialize the product.

More generally, Sanofi gains access to JHL’s pipeline of biologics, technical development and biologics manufacturing capabilities in China and Taiwan, while JHL will leverage Sanofi’s infrastructure in China.

A JHL spokesman told us "We plan to file a Chinese CTA [for JHL1101] soon but keep exact dates close to our chest for competitive reasons."

Global plan

In time, the firms plan to commercialize JHL’s pipeline of biosimilars outside China according to Sanofi spokesman Laurence Bollack.

He told us: “The first key milestone will be to get the first products registered and launched, with the future goal to launch more products and with potential geographic expansion.

“Short-term goal is to accelerate the development of JHL pipeline products. Long-term goal is JHL and Sanofi will bring more products to the pipeline in China and potentially global market.”