AstraZeneca's Yin Min: Transforming Lung Cancer into a Chronic, Manageable Disease

AstraZeneca entered China in 1993, and Yin Min is a seasoned veteran cultivated locally by this multinational giant. Before assuming the role of General Manager of the Oncology Business Unit in China in 2018, she had served the company for over 12 years, rising to the position of Vice President (VP).

Yin Min, General Manager of AstraZeneca China’s Oncology Business Unit

It is often said in the industry that “multinational corporations stand firm, while executives come and go,” yet Yin Min belongs to the “minority.” A graduate of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Yin Min does not have a background in biomedicine. She joined AstraZeneca in 2006 as a Senior Financial Planning Manager and subsequently underwent multiple overseas rotations, gradually transitioning from a back-office role to strategic and compliance-focused frontline market positions. To date, she manages a domestic oncology business team comprising over 2,000 employees.

Yin Min believes that “inclusiveness” is one of the defining characteristics of AstraZeneca’s corporate culture. As a multinational pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca’s organizational management and operational expertise are already at a top-tier international level; nevertheless, it continues to integrate local cultures in each country, even approaching its operations with the mindset of a second startup.

Yin Min candidly shared that while many perceive work at multinational corporations as comfortable, her reality has been defined by the “996” work schedule as the norm. Over her 13 years at AstraZeneca, she has undergone job rotations nearly every two years, continuously embracing challenges associated with higher-level positions. This experience has driven her to approach her work with an entrepreneurial mindset. With a background primarily in finance, her progressive ascent to her current role would not have been possible without the multiple rotation opportunities and comprehensive, multidimensional development provided by AstraZeneca’s talent cultivation system. As a beneficiary of this system, she is committed to passing on this philosophy to her team and colleagues around her.

If China is AstraZeneca’s most valued market, then its oncology business in China is the company’s top priority. Financial report data shows that in 2018, AstraZeneca’s sales revenue in the Chinese market increased to $3.795 billion, with oncology business revenue reaching $810 million, a year-on-year increase of 41%, accounting for 13.27% of AstraZeneca’s global oncology business. These figures demonstrate the outstanding performance and promising future of AstraZeneca’s oncology business in China.

AstraZeneca’s financial report also disclosed plans for business integration, carving out its oncology business as a separate division and merging its cardiovascular, respiratory, and diabetes segments into a single Biopharmaceuticals unit. Yin Min viewed this strategic restructuring by headquarters as a positive signal for the China oncology business under her responsibility.

Led by Yin Min, AstraZeneca China’s Oncology Business Unit serves as a key force supporting AstraZeneca’s participation in the global competition for blockbuster drugs, while also acting as a guardian of the life, health, and quality of life for cancer patients in China and worldwide. At the Second AstraZeneca Lung Cancer Summit, Yin Min announced the unit’s next goal: to transform lung cancer into a chronic, manageable disease.

Lung cancer is one of the diseases of greatest concern to the global medical community. Ranking first among all types of cancer in terms of both incidence and mortality, it is also the most prevalent and deadliest cancer in China. The majority of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, with a five-year survival rate of only 16%–18%, earning it the title of the “number one killer” among cancers.

Yin Min told reporters that the vision of AstraZeneca’s oncology business is “to ensure cancer no longer remains a leading cause of death.” Given China’s large population base and the high incidence of specific cancer types, the company decided to prioritize lung cancer before addressing other indications one by one. Specifically, it is focusing on two key areas: improving drug accessibility and accelerating the market launch of new medicines.

In the year before Yin Min joined AstraZeneca, Iressa (gefitinib), the world’s first oral targeted therapy for lung cancer developed by the company, entered the Chinese market. This drug transformed traditional treatment approaches for lung cancer and represented an innovative breakthrough in oncology. According to information disclosed by Professor Liao Meilin from the Shanghai Chest Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine at a forum, some of her lung cancer patients survived for more than ten years after taking this medication.

Yin Min stated that although AstraZeneca launched a charitable assistance program for lung cancer patients regarding Iressa (gefitinib), many patients were still unable to afford the drug when it first hit the market. By 2017, the medication was included in the National Reimbursement Drug List, making it accessible to a larger number of patients.

For Yin Min personally, the most memorable and impactful event during her less-than-one-year tenure overseeing the Oncology Business Unit was undoubtedly the national “4+7” volume-based procurement program launched in December of last year. After comprehensive consideration from multiple perspectives—including patents, brand, and market—AstraZeneca decided to reduce the price of Iressa (gefitinib) by 77%, making it one of only two foreign-company products to win bids in the first round of volume-based procurement.

Yin Min stated, “The price of gefitinib tablets dropped from RMB 2,280 to RMB 547 following the volume-based procurement tender. For patients covered by medical insurance, reimbursement rates of 60% or even higher further reduce out-of-pocket costs to an average of just over RMB 200 per box. This significant price reduction exceeded patient expectations, and volume-based procurement has indeed substantially alleviated the financial burden of medication costs for patients.”

She also mentioned that long-term use of gefitinib by some patients may lead to the EGFR T790M resistance mutation. In response, AstraZeneca launched Tagrisso (osimertinib) in 2017. This is the world’s first third-generation, irreversible EGFR-TKI, which can selectively inhibit both EGFR sensitizing mutations and the T790M resistance mutation.

In 2018, the National Healthcare Security Administration issued the "Notice on Including 17 Anti-Cancer Drugs in Category B of the National Basic Medical Insurance, Work-Related Injury Insurance, and Maternity Insurance Drug List." Osimertinib for second-line treatment of T790M-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was included in Category B of the National Reimbursed Drug List, thereby alleviating the medication burden for some patients.

In other words, AstraZeneca is continuously improving drug accessibility and extending patient survival through multiple initiatives, including its charitable assistance program for lung cancer patients, the inclusion of first- and third-generation targeted therapies for lung cancer in the National Reimbursement Drug List, and the incorporation of gefitinib into the national “4+7” centralized volume-based procurement list.

In addition to reducing the treatment costs of marketed drugs through various channels, Yin Min stated that she has another important task: accelerating the launch of next-generation drugs in China by the headquarters.

For example, the PD-L1 monoclonal antibody Imfinzi (durvalumab) injection was approved by the U.S. FDA in 2018 for the treatment of unresectable, locally advanced (Stage III) NSCLC with stable disease following chemoradiotherapy. In December 2018, AstraZeneca also submitted a marketing application to the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) with indications consistent with those approved by the FDA.

AstraZeneca recently licensed the antibody-drug conjugate trastuzumab deruxtecan (DS-8201) from Daiichi Sankyo. Yin Min plans to apply to headquarters after the collaboration is implemented, and actively communicate with domestic drug regulatory authorities to strive for the possibility of this drug being approved first in China.

She also mentioned that AstraZeneca itself has multiple products in development entering critical stages of clinical trials, with 7 Phase II and 1 Phase III clinical trials currently underway for the NSCLC indication alone.

For products already launched in China, further expansion of indications is particularly important. Following the approval for second-line treatment of EGFR T790M mutation-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), osimertinib’s first-line indication for EGFR mutation-positive advanced NSCLC has been approved in multiple countries and regions worldwide, including the United States, Japan, and Europe, and is expected to gain approval in China this year.

Yin Min is relatively optimistic about achieving the goal of making lung cancer a controllable disease. She firmly believes that as more patients gain access to and can afford advanced treatments, thereby surpassing the five-year survival mark, the goal of transforming lung cancer into a chronic disease will come increasingly within reach.

Yin Min candidly stated that lung cancer treatment has evolved from surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy to targeted and precision therapies, and further to immunotherapy. As a leader dedicated to researching tumor gene mutations and drug resistance mechanisms, AstraZeneca has also achieved numerous milestone breakthroughs. However, from the patient’s perspective, she noted that innovation solely from the standpoint of drug development is far from sufficient.

Based on her repeated experiences accompanying relatives with cancer to medical appointments, the current oncology treatment model in China is relatively fragmented. Patients and doctors are engaged in a strategic interplay: surgeons tend to recommend surgery, medical oncologists favor pharmacological interventions, and radiation oncologists often propose radiotherapy.

Yin Min stated that as drugs are increasingly developed based on pathogenic mechanisms rather than specific tumor types, future treatments may become pan-tumor in nature—meaning a drug effective for lung cancer could also be used to treat gastric cancer. However, determining the optimal treatment modality—whether surgery, radiochemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, or even more advanced approaches—requires collaborative decision-making through a multidisciplinary team.

She is putting into practice another core philosophy of AstraZeneca’s global headquarters—shifting from a product-centric approach to one grounded in Therapeutic Areas (TAs). She noted that the abbreviation “TA” sounds like the Chinese pronouns for “he” or “she,” which may serve as a scientific embodiment of the widely advocated “patient-centric” principle.

In her view, the “patient-centric” diagnostic and treatment pathway represents an innovation in business model. By leveraging advanced technologies such as medical imaging, artificial intelligence, and big data to facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration in clinical decision-making, this approach creates a true win-win scenario for patients, hospitals, society, and enterprises alike.

Yin Min told reporters that multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment driven by technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data is no longer just a concept; AstraZeneca has gradually turned this vision into reality. For instance, to improve the diagnostic rate of lung cancer, AstraZeneca has established strategic partnerships with Tencent, iFlytek Healthcare, and AliHealth, developing an integrated full-course solution for diagnosis and treatment.

AstraZeneca Wuxi Integrated Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Center (iLCC)

Yin Min cited the Integrated Lung Cancer Center (iLCC) established in Wuxi as an example to demonstrate how the iLCC achieves comprehensive, multi-dimensional care for lung cancer patients throughout their entire disease journey. This is accomplished through a precision diagnosis platform, collaborative diagnosis and treatment by multidisciplinary teams (MDT) both within and outside the hospital, and the establishment of patient rehabilitation centers. She further emphasized that this business innovation model is highly replicable. As of 2018, AstraZeneca had supported the establishment of 35 iLCCs across China; its precision diagnosis platform had been implemented in 300 hospitals nationwide, and MDT workstations had been set up in 88 hospitals, cumulatively benefiting more than 5,700 patients.

Discussing the future of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment in China, Yin Min stated, “Providing patients with efficient, precise, and accessible healthcare services is beyond the capacity of AstraZeneca alone; it requires the concerted efforts of multiple stakeholders across prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and patient care. Nevertheless, AstraZeneca is committed to taking the lead in exploring chronic disease management throughout the entire course of lung cancer, thereby contributing to the achievement of the ‘Healthy China 2030’ goal of increasing the five-year cancer survival rate by 15%, and enabling Chinese lung cancer patients to achieve long-term, high-quality survival with the disease.”