January is cervical cancer awareness month. Coincidentally, Hybribio makes a new process in developing therapeutic drugs for HPV infection. Hybribio subsidiaries (Hybribio Medicine & Guangzhou Hybribio) successfully obtained invention patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office and Russia Rospatent. The title of the patent is “A chloroquine gel and its preparation method and application”.

▲ Patents from U.S.A & Russia

Blocking persistent HPV infection can ease patients’ pains

Over the years, through in-depth research on the human papillomavirus (HPV), Hybribio research team found that in the early stage when the disease is mild or the only infection has not yet caused clinical symptoms, the application of drugs to block the persistent infection of HPV and provide targeted treatment can effectively reduce the pain and economic burden of patients and solve the dilemma of tight clinical drug use, which also has important social significance and economic value for the strategic planning of cervical cancer prevention and treatment. 

To develop a therapeutic drug for HPV infection, in 2013, Hybribio Group took the lead in initiating the research work of the anti-HPV drug project - chloroquine phosphate gel. Over the years, in-depth research at the molecular, tissue, cellular and animal levels has confirmed that chloroquine phosphate can significantly inhibit HPV replication and transmission and treat abnormal histological lesions caused by HPV infection, genuinely targeting the cause of the disease.

▲ Hybribio chloroquine phosphate gel

Chloroquine phosphate gel, self-developed by Hybribio, is mainly used to treat various diseases caused by HPV infection, covering all kinds of skin warts caused by HPV low-risk type such as plantar warts, flat warts, hand warts, as well as external genital and perianal condyloma. The fact is that there is no good treatment drug for HPV infection, especially for warts, flat warts, and other surgical treatments can only cure the symptoms but not the root cause of the disease. In other words, the easily recurring HPV infection brings patients great pain and economic pressure. 

The indication had been approved for clinical trial as a class 2.2 modified new drug in 2018. The phase I clinical trial was completed with good results in 2019. Clinical phase II trials are currently underway and progressing well. Meanwhile, indications in treating women with HPV infection are also being developed parallel.

Chloroquine phosphate gel was granted one Chinese invention patent, one appearance patent and one utility model patent in 2019-2020, respectively. Hybribio sent the invention patent applications to eight regions, namely, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Korea, the United States, Europe, Japan and Indonesia, in September 2020. Until January 2022, the patent has been granted in four countries, namely, Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia.

▲Patent certificates granted at home and abroad

To better promote the drug research projects, Hybribio Group built a drug production workshop in its Guangzhou headquarter in 2015, together with a special drug R&D laboratory, quality inspection laboratory and microbiology laboratory to provide sufficient sites and test equipment for drug research and development. 

In recent years, the incidence of cervical cancer has been on the rise, and the trend of youthfulness is becoming increasingly prominent, which is one of the major global public health problems recognized by the World Health Organization. As a strategic partner of China's cervical cancer prevention and treatment project, Hybribio has been deeply engaged in HPV nucleic acid typing test for nearly 20 years and has independently developed a series of HPV typing test products for cervical cancer, which are widely used in clinical testing in hospitals and mass population screening, providing HPV testing services for over 40 million women in total. In recent years, through the introduction of a fully automated vaginal microecology evaluation system, we have gradually formed a set of intelligent and characteristic "comprehensive female reproductive health evaluation system", which can make the accurate and efficient evaluation of female lower reproductive tract infections and provide more accurate, efficient and convenient integrated service solutions for clinical diagnosis. 

After years of research and development, Hybribio has successfully developed the HPV infection treatment drug "Chloroquine Phosphate Gel" and obtained several patents at home and abroad, which has achieved the coverage of the prevention and treatment chain from HPV detection to drug treatment. We believe our efforts can better achieve the goal of "accelerating global cervical cancer elimination strategy" and protect women's reproductive health worldwide more effectively!