With the continuous advancement of science and technology and the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure, Guangzhou's biomedicine industry has ushered in a golden period of rapid development. The biomedicine industry has become one of the three new pillar industries in Guangzhou. Behind this, female intellectuals are playing an increasingly important role.
In their scientific research universe, individuals and teams complement each other, and career and life go hand in hand. For them, the "Biomedicine Department" has universal gravity, always exudes charm, and is always worth exploring.
Curiosity and concentration, gentleness and firmness, wisdom and calmness have cultivated their unique resilience and allowed them to exude a charming brilliance in the diverse world of women.
As International Women's Day is approaching, Nandu exclusively interviews female doctors in the field of biomedicine and walks into their scientific research universe.
Doctor, scholar, Asia-Pacific management of the world's leading pharmaceutical company, leader of biomedical start-up companies... Wang Tingting, a post-70s doctor, has never been willing to stay in her comfort zone.
Looking back at every change and choice, Wang Tingting mentioned one sentence repeatedly: Bringing a biotechnology to the clinical stage, making it into a new drug, seeing the curative effect on patients, and improving their quality of life will produce a very, very strong sense of happiness. . Every time she mentioned it, a happy smile would break out on her face.
Wang Tingting, chief operating officer and chief medical officer of Guangzhou Lain Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., holds a PhD in tumor biology from the National University of Singapore.
01/
After "giving up" twice after leaving the hospital and college
, her goal became clearer
In the eyes of her father, Wang Tingting has been a steady, rigorous and conscientious girl with strong execution ability since she was a child. She is a "seed player" to study medicine. It was at her father's suggestion that Wang Tingting, who was still ignorant of the classification of colleges and majors, filled out all her wishes as medical majors.
While studying for a master's degree at China Medical University, Wang Tingting systematically studied morphology and acquired knowledge of diagnostic tumor classification. After graduation, she worked as a pathologist in her hometown of Shenyang, Liaoning for five years, mainly responsible for the diagnosis of tumors. 90% of the cases she came into contact with were tumor patients.
During this period of medical experience, she encountered a “very shocking case” that almost changed the trajectory of her life. A 35-year-old female executive of a foreign company suffered from breast cancer. After receiving chemotherapy, the physical recovery situation was not optimistic.
"A woman in her prime died of cancer when her career was on the rise. I could only make a clinical diagnosis, but I couldn't really help her solve the problem. I wanted to know what caused the disease and whether I could develop a target for the patient. To provide treatment options and alleviate their pain."
"Solve unsolved clinical problems!" With this goal, Wang Tingting gave up her stable job as a doctor and went to the National University of Singapore to major in tumor biology, and treated breast cancer as a disease. Key research directions. She mainly studies the changes in some biomarkers in breast cancer patients before and after treatment, so as to find some biomarkers that can predict the risk of the disease and monitor the patient's response to treatment.
Wang Tingting is conducting experiments.
Wang Tingting believes that the five years of studying for a Ph.D. were five years of transformation and five years of doubling her confidence. She has integrated into a completely unfamiliar foreign environment and is constantly being baptized by the cutting-edge knowledge of the industry. The most important thing is to have the ability to ask questions and solve problems.
However, after publishing five or six papers in world-renowned journals, Wang Tingting often asks herself a question: What is the point of doing these papers? Recalling the career plan she made when she first went abroad, Wang Tingting thought she would continue on the path of scientific research. But when the teachers at the school tried to persuade her to stay in school several times, she declined them one by one.
There is a firm voice in her heart: she must transform research results into treatments to directly benefit patients.
02/
Focus on the high incidence of cancer in Asia,
establish a database of Chinese patients
After graduating from the National University of Singapore, Wang Tingting joined Roche Diagnostics, responsible for the promotion of tumor drugs and tumor diagnostic kits in the Asia-Pacific region. This working experience in the world's leading biopharmaceutical company gave her a bright start to her career story in the industry.
Wang Tingting quickly grew into the head of medical affairs for Roche Diagnostics’ oncology business in the Asia-Pacific region. She is responsible for transforming the company’s global strategy into an Asia-Pacific strategy, and then cooperating with 16 Asia-Pacific countries to advance it. It is also at this stage that the method of treating tumors progresses from traditional tumor killing to the transitional stage of using the body's own immune system to fight tumors. Wang Tingting also participated in the promotion of Roche's PD-1 (immunosuppressive molecule) monoclonal antibody treatment.
At the same time, key breakthroughs have been made in the world based on engineered chimeric antigen receptor t (car-t) cell therapy. In 2017, the world's first car-t cell therapy was approved for marketing, which provided Wang Tingting with huge scientific research impetus. She is not satisfied with her current work situation and hopes to be more deeply involved in the entire process from research and development to transformation. Later, she joined Tessa Therapeutics in Singapore to promote advanced CD30 CAR-T cell therapy into clinical trials and led the FDA IND clinical application.
In 2019, Lyen Bio decided to recruit comprehensive talents with both industrial experience and clinical experience to promote the speed of industrial transformation, and extended an olive branch to Wang Tingting.
At that time, car-t cell therapy was proven to be effective in blood tumors, but it was difficult to conquer solid tumors. Linen Biotech is currently working on studying how to use mRNA technology combined with TCR-T cell therapy to treat solid tumors. In addition, Laien Biotech has extensive experience in the research fields of hepatitis B virus and liver cancer, which is also Wang Tingting’s interest.
It is reported that nearly half of the new liver cancer patients and people who die from liver cancer in the world every year are from China. Because early symptoms are not obvious, most patients are often diagnosed at an advanced stage when first diagnosed and miss the best opportunity for treatment. Wang Tingting said that European and American financing companies are often more interested in investing in cancers with a high incidence in Europe and the United States. She hopes to pay more attention to and study cancers with a high incidence in Asia to find solutions for Asian patients. "We want to do clinical trials in China and generate China's own data for use in China's patient population."
At the beginning of 2020, Wang Tingting joined Lien as chief medical officer and operating officer.
"Start-up companies have put forward more requirements for my growth, and I must continue to learn and grow. There is no ceiling for managers, and there is no ceiling for teams."
According to Wang Tingting, the R&D teams of the world's largest pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies are roughly divided into There are two types: one is established by the company itself, and the other is the introduction of new external technologies. Affected by factors such as cost, expertise, and resource allocation, most large companies choose the latter.
From the perspective of R&D and transformation, small companies are more flexible. After preliminary research and evaluation, if a project is identified as a company strategy, it can be immediately transformed into the company's internal pipeline and started to be put into action. During the research and development process, the plan can also be adjusted at any time according to the actual situation. But at the same time, small companies also have higher requirements for personal comprehensive capabilities. "Even two or three of us have to take on the work of a global affairs department in a large company." Wang Tingting said.
03/
One year after joining the start-up company, the
team's "world's first" new drug obtained fda clinical batches of pieces
After joining Lien, Wang Tingting immediately devoted herself to the cause of treating liver cancer with TCR-T cell therapy.
What is TCR-T cell therapy? She gave a vivid example. As a type of human immune system, T cells can fight like police against foreign pathogens or mutated and aging cells in the body. However, the immune system of tumor patients is relatively low, and T cells are often unable to recognize or fight.TCR-T cell therapy is to extract T cells from the patient's body, and after engineering them outside the body, add TCR "weapons" to the T cells. After the enhanced version of T cells is returned to the patient's body, like a special force, it can more accurately identify the "enemy" of cancer cells and kill them directly.
But Laien's team also faces a technical problem that almost no one has overcome: in order to treat more patients, T cells need to remain active even when transported over long distances.
Can fresh products be made into frozen products while maintaining their potency?
Wang Tingting said that this is equivalent to producing a brand new product because the form of the product has changed. Without any reference experience, she and her colleagues solved the technical problems in less than a year and provided stability data for many months, laying the foundation for the subsequent international multi-center clinical trials.
In 2021, Linen Biotech received the international multi-center Phase IB/II IND clinical approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is the world's first FDA-approved treatment of hepatitis B virus-related diseases using TCR-T cells. The international multi-center clinical trial of hepatocellular carcinoma has completed the reinfusion of many patients. This TCR-T cell therapy has also obtained fast track designation (fast track) and orphan drug (orphan drug) qualifications granted by the FDA. After the fast track designation is granted, the FDA can intervene early, communicate in depth on the clinical development plan, and provide guidance. When conditions are met, accelerated approval and priority approval qualifications can be obtained.
"Every data and every material is grinded out by our team ourselves. We have almost no past experience to refer to. This is the proudest thing I have ever done!" Wang Tingting revealed that Laien Biotech is currently actively developing its layout. The AI-powered TCR discovery platform has been expanded to different targets, covering different solid tumors such as cervical cancer, gastric cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and nasopharyngeal cancer.
"When are you going to retire?"
"Haha, I have never thought about this problem! After so many years of accumulation, now is the best time in my life." Wang Tingting said.
Research suggestions:
Guangzhou and Singapore have their own advantages in the field of biomedicine.
We look forward to the cooperation between Guangzhou and Singapore to produce more fruitful industrial transformation results.
In June 2023, Laien Biotech completed a B2 round of financing of over 300 million yuan, funded by Guangzhou Industrial Investment Group The investment was led by Guoju Venture Capital, a direct subsidiary of Guangzhou High-tech Zone Group, and CSPC Nader Fund.
In Wang Tingting’s view, financing in the biopharmaceutical industry must be sustainable. Only the long-term companionship of capital can companies fully devote themselves to technology research and development. If relevant government departments can intervene in the early process development of enterprises and guide the society to strengthen financial support and talent support, it will be more conducive to the long-term and stable development of the biopharmaceutical industry.
In recent years, Singapore has developed into a hotspot for innovation in medicine and biotechnology. As an outstanding biomedical talent who has studied and worked in Singapore for many years, Wang Tingting said that many scientists "settled" in Singapore after working in different research institutes around the world. Singapore’s open and inclusive environment nurtures many new ideas and promotes the transformation of early results.
In 2015, Linen Biotechnology was hatched from the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research. Subsequently, because he was optimistic about the development potential of Guangzhou's biomedical industry, he located his Chinese headquarters in Guangzhou.
"People who work in medicine often say that human data is the most precious." Singapore has a small population and it is difficult to provide sufficient clinical trial data. Guangzhou has high-quality medical resources, and many hospitals have participated in clinical trials of innovative drugs. Therefore, in Guangzhou, the speed of clinical trials can be pressed on the "fast forward button". Wang Tingting believes that the future cooperation between Suixin and Suixin will bear more fruitful results in industrial transformation.
At the same time, she also pointed out that professional talents for domestic new drug research and development are still relatively scarce. It is hoped that more innovative companies will grow on the soil of Guangzhou and more diverse talents will be hatched. This will be a long-term driving force for the sustainable development of the biomedical field.
Views of female doctors:
More and more doctors
are taking bench to bed as the direction of their efforts.
"In the field of biomedicine, if you want to do something, I think you should study for a Ph.D."
According to Wang Tingting's observation, in her During their Ph.D. studies, staying in school to teach is the mainstream career plan for Ph.D. It is easy for everyone to have no confidence in industrial transformation. Because the industry is developing very fast, you must first get over the psychological hurdle. However, in recent years, more and more scientific researchers have taken bench to bed (from basic to clinical) as the direction of their efforts.
"We are engaged in industrial transformation, and having a strong scientific research foundation is definitely a plus." Wang Tingting gave an example. Clinical trial design is more demanding than basic scientific research because it involves people. However, if you want to obtain a more accurate prediction of results in clinical trial design, you need a solid professional foundation and broad interdisciplinary knowledge. Until now, Wang Tingting still checks the clinical trial design plan word for word.
After experiencing constant changes in her identity as a doctor, scholar, and business manager, Wang Tingting lamented that every role change brings her one step closer to her dream self. Now becoming a business manager also means that one's responsibilities are heavier. When the team encounters difficulties on various issues, she hopes to give appropriate suggestions and build the company into a platform for everyone to grow together.
On the promotional wall of Lian Bio, it shows the six core members of the company's scientific and management team, four of whom are female experts with doctorate degrees. Wang Tingting emphasized that the professional knowledge, rich experience and collaborative spirit of team members are the key to the company's success. She pointed out that no matter what gender you are, ability is always the most important and there are no shortcuts to growth. In addition, personal hobbies are also the motivation that drives individuals to explore in depth over a long period of time.
Wang Tingting also emphasized that without the understanding and strong support of her family, it would be difficult to achieve such a confident and happy state today. Since she was in college, her father has been encouraging her to study for graduate school and Ph.D., and to have higher pursuits.
Influenced by Wang Tingting, her son developed a strong interest in biology and chemistry at a very young age. Currently studying medicine. "Our industry is in great need of talents with both medical background and biology knowledge. He himself also wants to try it in a start-up company." Wang Tingting said with a smile.
Planning: Wang Weiguo Li Yang
Coordinator: Yin Lai You Manni Wang Daobin
Writing: Nandu reporter Wang Shiqi
Photography: Nandu reporter Zhong Ruijun
Video: Nandu reporter Cai Wenyin Luo Xuechun Zhao Xun
Design: Ouyang Jing
