Medical areas of focus and mRNA pipeline

The outbreak of COVID-19 since the end of 2019 has been a warning that public health is an integral part to national security, economy and social stability. Other than COVID viruses，several other viruses such as RSV and seasonal influenza virus also occur sporadically across the world. The outbreaks of pandemics together with other infectious diseases demand more efficacious vaccines and drugs to be developed.

mRNA vaccine, once conveyed into cells by a delivery system such as lipid nanoparticles (LNP) will express vaccine target antigens within cells, and the expressed antigens will in turn induce B cell and T cell immune responses to provide protective immunity against future infection. In addition, the technology offers potential advantages in speed of development and manufacturing which have the potential to position people to better prepare for the respond to infectious disease threats that place millions of people at risk around the world.

At the immediately following outbreak of COVID-19 early 2020, Abogen started the campaign to develop COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and successfully delivered first China made mRNA vaccine late 2022. The company is also committed to apply its mRNA technologies to a broader spectrum of vaccines against other infectious viruses.

Global cancer cases are expected to increase by 47% by 2040 and its mortality rate ranks among the highest in the world. With an aging population, the incidence of cancer in China is also rising year by year. There remains a huge unmet need in the field of malignant tumor treatment. It is significant to develop more effective cancer treatments for the great expectation to "to raise the overall 5-year survival rate of cancer by 15%" proposed in "Healthy China 2030".

The mRNA-based therapeutics in cancer treatment stimulate stronger, more specific immune responses or more efficient expression of target proteins in patients. Thus, multiple immune-oncology treatments can be achieved, including activation of T cells with specific tumor antigen, relieve tumor immunosuppression, and improvement of tumor immune microenvironment. At the same time, mRNA technology can solve an array of challenges faced by traditional development of novel drugs, deliver new ideas for research into immunotherapy and tackle the otherwise undruggable drug targets.

Abogen is committed to applying the mRNA platform technology to explore the field of oncology with great novelty and bring hopes to more patients.

Rare diseases affect the health of approximately 350 million people globally. According to statistics from the Organization for Rare Diseases of the United States (NORD), there are currently over 7,000 known rare diseases, with a significant proportion of them having no approved treatment options.

Protein replacement therapy is the cornerstone of treating rare diseases associated with loss of specific protein function. mRNA-based protein replacement therapies inject mRNA into cells and thus produce functional proteins to replace abnormal proteins or supplement missing proteins. Compared to obtaining proteins through in vitro reconstitution, self-produced proteins from the mobilization of human bodies are expected to provide more therapeutic options for rare disease patients due to their natural structure and conformation.

In many ways, development of mRNA medicines for rare diseases represents highest technical bar of our technology in terms of stability, sustained high expression, and efficiency of the delivery systems. Based on our proprietary mRNA technology platform, Abogen continuously expands the technology frontier with the goal of one day bringing treatment options to patients and their families.