China’s Asieris Bets On Bladder Cancer With Rediscovered Asset From Johns Hopkins

07 Jun 2019

Emerging Company Profile: Aiming to change the current practice of surgically removing the bladder, China Asieris hopes to use an older drug to treat early-onset bladder cancer. This is the fourth and last in a series of China-based Emerging Company Profiles.

There are roughly 80,000 newly diagnosed bladder cancer cases each year in China and 70-80% are early-stage cancers, otherwise known as non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). The current standard care for high-risk patients who failed intravesical therapies is surgical removal of the bladder, which drastically lowers the patient’s quality of life.

Now, Shanghai-based Asieris Pharma is developing an old antibiotic – a methionine aminopeptidase II (MetAP2) inhibitor – as a repurposed...