Shanghai Sunway Biotech Co. Ltd. announced in November 2005 that the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration has approved Oncorine (H101), an oncolytic adenovirus, to be used in combination with chemotherapy as a treatment for patients with late stage refractory nasopharyngeal cancer. This marks the first oncolytic viral therapy approved by any regulatory agency in the world and this is the second commercial gene therapy product. H101 is essentially a modified version of Onyx-015, initially developed by Onyx Pharmaceuticals. Besides Oncorine, Shanghai Sunway Biotech develops a tumor-targeted recombinant adenovirus injection (H102) and an oncolytic recombinant adenovirus injection (H103) for treatment of cancer. H102 specifically targets primary hepatocellular carcinoma. H103 adenoviruses lyses the tumor cells and expresses Hsp70 that can potently stimulate an antitumor immune response.

See the following reviews regarding the developments of gene therapy in China:

• - Current status of gene therapy in Asia
• - Gene medicine for cancer treatment: commercially available medicine and accumulated clinical data in China
• - Gene Therapy in China - From a Dutch perspective (2010). This study was initiated by The Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM) to retrieve information from Chinese sources, esp. Chinese literature databases, Chinese scientists, scientific meetings in China, on gene therapy developments and risk assessment.