China’s airpocalypse paves a path for new cancer medicines

BEIJING (Jan 6): The thick haze of pollution blanketing northern China this winter is a grim reminder of the nation’s new growth industry: lung cancer drugs.

China logged more than 700,000 new cases of the disease in 2015, the product of a surge in air pollution, high smoking rates and unhealthy lifestyles as China has prospered in recent decades. Lung cancer is now the most common type of cancer in the country and its spread has spawned new listings as well as billion-dollar market values for Chinese companies like Betta Pharmaceuticals Co. and Hutchison China MediTech Ltd., which are attempting to build blockbuster treatments.

Zhejiang, Hangzhou-based Betta Pharma, which sells just one lung cancer drug called Conmana, shot up to as much as US$5.6 billion ($8 billion) in market value late last year after raising about US$110 million in a public offering on the Shenzhen exchange in November. Hutchison China MediTech, whose pipeline of experimental therapies is also heavily focused on lung cancer, also attracted US$110 million in a new listing on the Nasdaq in March.

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