Dedicated to bioresearch for decades, United Lab has achieved the integration of production and research of biological pharmacy and improved its sustainable core competitiveness. In 2010, it invested generously in building a research and production site of insulin and its analog and eight new manufacturing shops in Zhuhai, with all key equipment imported from manufacturing-advanced countries like Germany, France and Italy to guarantee the production quality. At present, it has set up three insulin-like API lines (rh-insulin, insulin glargine and insulin aspart), three insulin-like preparation lines, among which the USLEN pre-filled pen line is the pre-filling line first approved by the country. Now, the company’s insulin base is able to yield over 3 tons of insulin-like raw materials and about 300 million potions of preparations every year, with annual output value of over RMB 10 billion.
United Lab set up the Institute of Biology under Zhuhai United Laboratories Co., Ltd. in 2002. The Institute recruits almost 100 researchers, over 30% equipped with above-postgraduate degree, and has nearly 100 pieces of large R&D equipment, with over 60 million yuan invested in fixed assets, honorably known as “Enterprise Technology Center in Guangdong Province”, “Engineering Technology R&D Center in Guangdong Province” and "Post-Doctoral Research Center". In November 2014, Guangdong Provincial Science & Technology Department gave green light to the Institute’s application for establishing Guangdong Engineering Technology Center of Diabetic Biological Medicine.
The Institute focuses on the research of diabetic biological medicine and diabetes-related biological product. With 15 biotech drug projects under research, it has applied for 22 patents, with 16 already authorized, several others under the application process. Now the major products include rh-insulin – USLIN® (R, N, 30R and 50R) and human insulin analogue – insulin glargine USLEN®. United Lab is the second manufacturer at home that receives the approval for insulin glargine marketing and capable of manufacturing the second and third-generation insulin glargine. World-leading expression technology for pichia pastoris is applied to the second-generation insulin glargine - rh-insulin (USLIN), which was successfully released to the market in 2011, with quality higher than the level required by the existing Chinese Pharmacopoeia, US Pharmacopeia and European Pharmacopeia; in early 2017, the third-generation insulin analog - insulin glargine (USLEN) was launched, with quality perfectly complying with US Pharmacopeia requirement, and effect and safety as good as the original product. It has also completed the clinical test study for the third-generation insulin aspart, and is the first domestic enterprise that receives approval document for clinical test of insulin detemir. Further, the Institute has built the R&D platform for polypeptide products, dedicated to the research of nine products including Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1, Acetyl Tetrapeptide-5 and carnosine, creating the cosmetic raw material brand BIOPHIN , which has been successfully introduced to the market.
In the next few years, oriented to production and marketing of insulin and its analogues, United Lab will launch a greater number of high-quality and effective products.
