Reference News Network December 27 report: Spain's "Desarrollo" daily website on December 26 published an article titled "Pharmaceutical companies are turning their eyes to China to find new best-selling products," written by Ana Medina. The article excerpts are as follows:

As some drug patents approach expiration, Western pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning their attention to China, a country that has significantly shortened its R&D cycle.

Pfizer CEO Albert recently emphasized the necessity of cooperation between the US pharmaceutical industry and China. "In the biopharmaceutical field, China's astonishing development speed, cost advantages, and scale effects have changed the global competitive landscape," he said at a dinner hosted by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York. He also stated that China currently has about 1,200 candidate new drugs, compared to only 60 a decade ago.

With some Western pharmaceutical companies' blockbuster drug patents approaching expiration, and Western biotechnology companies with potential treatment solutions in the research stage becoming increasingly unattractive, these Western pharmaceutical companies are gradually turning their attention to China to seek promising new drugs.

Many European and American companies have begun to use Chinese biopharmaceutical companies to supplement their production lines. More and more multinational companies have reached licensing agreements with Chinese companies in different medical fields such as oncology and weight loss. Last year, Chinese biotechnology companies accounted for more than one-third of the total licensing agreements made by global major pharmaceutical companies.

Pfizer is one of the companies that have turned their attention to China to seek cooperation. In May this year, this New York pharmaceutical giant obtained a license for an anti-cancer drug from SanBio Pharmaceutical of China, with a maximum transaction value of nearly $6.1 billion. In December, Pfizer also signed a global exclusive collaboration and licensing agreement with Yaoke Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Shanghai Fosun Pharma, to jointly develop, produce, and market a small-molecule glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonist in Phase I clinical trials, which can be used for long-term weight management, with a maximum transaction value of nearly $2.1 billion.

Denmark's Novo Nordisk Company obtained a license for a weight-loss drug from China Federal Biotechnology (Zhuhai Hengqin) Co., Ltd. to maintain its competitiveness in the weight-loss field, with a maximum transaction value of up to $2 billion.

However, the company that made the largest deal this year was GSK. In July this year, the British company reached a cooperation agreement with Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. of China, with a maximum transaction value of up to $12 billion, to jointly develop up to 12 innovative drugs, including drugs for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In September, Swiss Novartis reached a cooperation agreement with Shanghai Boliang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. with a maximum transaction value of up to $5.2 billion, involving drugs targeting cardiovascular diseases.

Astrazeneca has also collaborated with China Sinopharm Group Co., Ltd. to jointly discover and develop preclinical candidate drugs with potential for treating chronic diseases, with a possible cooperation amount exceeding $5 billion. (Translated by Liu Lifu)

Original: toutiao.com/article/7588436876948701734/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author themselves.