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Cancer remains the second cause of death in U.S. The
American Cancer Society estimated that 1.28 million new
cancer cases and 555,000 deaths occurred in 2002, with
an enormous public healthcare cost of over $50 billion
per year. In 2001, over 10 million people were diagnosed
with cancer worldwide and 6,246,000 died from this devastating
disease. Combing the newly identified gene targets by
functional genomics technologies and taking advantage
of the abundant clinical resources in China, the Company
has developed a series of novel diagnostic and therapeutic
products.
Early cancer diagnosis can significantly improve patients'survival
rate. Tumor-specific antigens － proteins expressed on
tumor cells but not normal cells — provide the most convenient
target for cancer detection. Using functional genomics
and immunology technologies, the company has discovered
several brand-new members of a tumor surface antigen family
( RLs ). Some of those new members are secreted by tumor
cells, thus making them ideal potential targets to develop
diagnostic kits. Such kits can be used in initial screening
of large population for early cancer diagnosis.
Cancer vaccine has the most promising potential and
represents the next generation cancer therapeutics for
their higher expected efficacy and lower toxicity than
conventional radio- and chemo- therapies. Different from
other conventional cancer vaccine strategies, we have
combined a number of newly identified tumor-specific antigens
with a strong protein adjuvant to boost immune response
to eliminate cancer cells. This unique strategy will enable
us to develop more potent multivalent vaccines, rather
than single protein vaccines currently being tested in
clinical trials by others.
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