Under the terms of the clinical collaboration agreement, Hengrui will be responsible for administering the clinical trial with all study costs outside of China shared equally among both parties. LSKB will retain full commercial rights for rivoceranib outside of China and Hengrui will retain full commercial rights for camrelizumab worldwide.

“At diagnosis, hepatocellular carcinoma typically has a dismal prognosis due to a lack of treatment options and the ineffectiveness of standard systemic therapies,” said Dr. Sung Chul Kim, LSKB’s president, “we are enthusiastic to work with Hengrui for the potential to help more patients by combining rivoceranib with camrelizumab.”

“We are pursuing camrelizumab in about 20 clinical trials in China. There is ample scientific evidence and preliminary clinical data supporting the synergistic effects of camrelizumab when used in combination with apatinib (rivoceranib),” said Dr. Lianshan Zhang, president of Global R&D of Hengrui. “We look forward to partnering with LSKB to build upon the existing preclinical and clinical data and further explore this combination therapy for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, an area of high unmet medical needs.”

“As one of the leading biopharmaceutical companies in China, we are committed to developing innovative medicines to address the urgent clinical needs. Through years of effort, Hengrui has built a robust oncology pipeline, which holds significant potential to benefit cancer patients. We are excited about this collaboration to accelerate the delivery of effective and durable treatment options for patients around the world,” said Dr. Piaoyang Sun, chairman of Hengrui.

Currently, Hengrui is conducting an open-label, single arm multicenter phase 2 study (NCT03463876) to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the combination of camrelizumab and apatinib in patients with advanced HCC in China, where Hengrui has received approval of apatinib monotherapy for advanced gastric cancer.