BREAKING NEWS: Groundbreaking Lymphoma Cancer Treatment Enters China for the First Time

As a global advocate for lymphoma cancer patients and someone who's had a lifelong respect and affection for China's people and culture, I'm pleased to announce that one of the most effective treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has just been made available for the first time to cancer patients in China, where lymphoma is on the rise. 

Zevalin, a remarkable but underutilized radio-immunotherapy that successfully treats some of the most common types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, including the kind that I've personally been battling for the last 19 years, is now available for patients at Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital, one of the leading private hospitals in Hong Kong known for its high quality of patient care.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, an American biotech company that owns and manufactures Zevalin, granted the exclusive rights to the drug in China to CASI Pharmaceuticals, an American company whose primary focus is China's unmet needs in cancer and other illnesses, and CASI's local partner, Global Medical Solutions Hong Kong Limited. 

Zevalin, which was approved in the United States for the treatment of low-grade or follicular B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), has significantly higher complete response rates than Rituxan, the better-known blockbuster lymphoma drug. 

But for reasons that have nothing to do with how well Zevalin works on patients, most American lymphoma patients aren't even aware of this treatment. And of course Zevalin was virtually unknown in China, until now.

This new US-China partnership will hopefully increase global awareness of this lifesaving treatment, and of lymphoma in general. It could even lead to a curious and first-of-its-kind global healthcare dichotomy that could result in the following headline: More cancer patients in China than America being treated with a lifesaving drug made in the USA! 

But most importantly, this historic agreement will save lives. It isn't widely known, but lymphoma is increasing in China. A white paper from the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau three years ago reportedly showed that the population of lymphoma patients in Beijing more than doubled from 2001 to 2010. 

Dr Zhu Jun, director of the Beijing Cancer Hospital's lymphoma department, told the South China Morning Post that the afflicted population of lymphoma patients is rising by more than 6 per cent each year.

Innovation Works and Google China's Kai-Fu Lee

Even some very high-profile people in China have had to fight the disease. Kai-Fu Lee, the former head of Google China and current CEO of Innovation Works, wrote about his lymphoma diagnosis on his hugely popular micro-blog last year. "Life is limited. Everyone is equal in the face of cancer," Lee wrote on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like micro-blogging service. His statement was read by millions.

Chen Wanqing, Deputy Director of China's National Cancer Prevention and Control Research Office, told Beijing Review that in the next 10 years, the number of cancer patients will continue to rise in China and by 2020 an estimated 6.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer each year. 

But unlike lung cancer and various other cancers, Zhu told the South China Morning Post, lymphoma is still a type of cancer with which most oncologists in China are just not very familiar.

The Keys to This US-China Partnership's Success

The key to the success of CASI's new venture in China is how effectively the company communicates with China's governmental agencies, oncology communities and, most importantly, lymphoma patients themselves. 

While we are seeing exciting new partnerships like this one and new lymphoma clinical trials at China drug companies like Innovent and JW Therapeutics and Beigene, word of all this positive activity in the lymphoma space has still not reached the entire Chinese population, who are all-too familiar with lung cancer, but less familiar with lymphoma. 

It's one thing to bring your new treatment to China. It's quite another to convince China's cancer patients and their families to embrace something of which they are not aware. 

Patient advocacy in China is still catching up to the science. That's why we are reaching out to China's lymphoma patient population directly with our gesture of friendship. Chinese people are so brilliant and kind, but they do not like to be told what to do. They are proud and smart. 

Our project is my way of gently helping my friends in China navigate their own way through the lymphoma maze that I've traversed for two decades. I just want to help with some basic information about the disease and some inspiration.

It's vitally important to communicate the message directly and carefully to China's people that lymphoma is not a death sentence, that it is treatable and beatable, and that Zevalin is just one of many drugs that can treat this disease.

Biopharmaceutical companies are doing amazing things in their labs, and they are saving lives, but they need to effectively market their products and more sensitively communicate with the patient population.

Casi is a tremendous company that is bringing to China drugs that fill an unmet need. As those of you who've read my work already know, radio-immunotherapy (RIT) saved my life in a clinical trial. 

I wrote about this in Newsweek, and in Hope Begins in the Dark, my first book on lymphoma survivors. But the trial wasn't for Zevalin, it was for the "other" RIT for lymphoma: Bexxar, which saved my life and gave me a very long remission.

Both Zevalin and Bexxar are outstanding treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. But as I reported for the International Business Times, Bexxar was unceremoniously scrapped by GlaxoSmithKline last year. 

When Glaxo dumped Bexxar, the good folks at Spectrum told me reassuringly that they were committed to keeping Zevalin on the market. I was almost speechless with gratitude. My admiration for them has been a constant throughout my many years as an advocate for cancer patients. 

My job as a journalist and global lymphoma patient advocate is simply to tell cancer patients about all their treatment options, both pharma-based and holistic, and to provide some tools to patients and their families that help them cope with a cancer diagnosis, which of course can be devastating. 

Many of China's lymphoma patients still unfortunately think that a lymphoma diagnosis means certain death. I want to help spread the word that this is not true. This cancer is treatable and beatable. I want to help China's cancer patients not only regain the lives they had before they were diagnosed, but see their lives actually improve. 

Lymphoma is scary, but having it has made me a better writer, a better husband and father, a better person. It has brought me moments of fear but also moments of joy. And it has inspired me to help others get through what I've already been through. Remember: Hope begins in the dark!