German media: China has made a leapfrog development in pharmaceutical R&D, and it may only be a matter of time before China replaces Europe and the US as the new drug R&D center.
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung comments that China has made a leapfrog development in the field of pharmaceutical R&D, and it may only be a matter of time before China replaces Europe and the US as the new drug R&D center.
European pharmaceutical industry faces dual pressure from China and the US
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung published a commentary stating that the European pharmaceutical industry is facing pressure from US tariffs while also having to cope with increasingly strong competition from China. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote: "The era when Chinese companies only copied drugs or provided part of the pharmaceutical raw materials has ended. Underestimating the competition from China would be a serious mistake."
The commentary titled "New Drugs from China" wrote:
"China's rapid rise in oncology R&D is particularly notable. In a clinical trial in September last year, a lung cancer drug developed by the small Chinese company Akeso Bio showed better efficacy than Merck & Co.'s best-selling drug Keytruda. Moreover, Chinese companies are also developing dozens of promising cancer treatment methods. In the field of anti-obesity new drugs, China has also established a broad foundation: of the 160 treatment options currently under development globally, about one-third come from China."
Like other fields in China, the pharmaceutical industry is also strongly supported by the government. Some provincial governments have established specialized industrial parks and equipped them with a large number of the most advanced drug R&D and production facilities. China's vast domestic research team also provides a guarantee for medical innovation, and an increasing number of researchers who have received education at top U.S. universities are returning to China. Trump's adversarial policies targeting China are risking the loss of outstanding international talent from the U.S.
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung comments that, given the advantages of "timing, location, and people" in China's pharmaceutical R&D sector, it is foreseeable that the center of global drug R&D will shift further towards China:
"At present, most of China's biotechnology companies are still small and mainly focus on the domestic market. These companies also generally lack experience in international drug approval processes and market promotion. However, just like in the fields of electric vehicles and electronic products, Chinese companies can achieve global expansion at an astonishing speed. Therefore, it may only be a matter of time before the Chinese pharmaceutical industry takes over the global market."
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1854432788762636/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.