Several Chinese biotech companies have joined the race to find a cure for Covid-19, the South China Morning Post reports. I-Mab Biopharma will soon start clinical trials on a promising drug, while Cansino Biologics’ trial on a vaccine has been approved by Chinese authorities. Song Ruilin, Director of the China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association, says the policies launched in 2008 to support development of new drugs are now starting to pay off.

Shen Huaqiong, CEO of I-Mab Biopharma, was flying home to Shanghai from New York when it was reported that a mysterious respiratory illness was spreading at an alarming rate in Wuhan, Hubei province. Hours earlier, she was at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the trading bell to mark the listing of the first Chinese biotech company in the U.S. in over two years. The company’s management decided that something had to be done fast to get on top of the situation. “We closely followed the case reports from Wuhan and realized there was a correlation between the severity of cases and the cytokine release syndrome (CRS),” Shen said. CRS is an overreaction of the immune system that affects one in every five patients infected with the SARS-Cov-19 virus.

By mid-March, I-Mab filed for regulatory approval to use the drug candidate TJM2 in clinical trials involving more than 100 patients in the United States to treat CRS. TJM2 is an antibody designed to prevent or stem progress of the deadly disease by “neutralizing” a substance secreted by immune cells, which plays a key role in causing inflammation and pneumonia. I-Mab is not the only Chinese pharmaceutical company searching for a coronavirus cure. Tianjin-based Cansino Biologic said its initial clinical trial of a vaccine candidate jointly developed with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences has been approved by Chinese regulators and has already been injected into volunteers. Previously the company developed an Ebola vaccine.

China has been a major generic drug manufacturer and exporter of raw materials for the past 15 years, but invested little in innovative drugs development until recently. Some 301 generics were granted marketing approval last year. The industry produced CNY3.57 trillion of pharmaceutical products in 2018, with CNY1.71 trillion in domestic sales. Of the 51 innovative drugs approved in China last year, 10 were locally developed, an 11% increase from 2018, the South China Morning Post reports.