China is becoming a major producer of biotech drugs, drawing the attention of some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on April 11. Pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly and Merck have signed deals with Chinese companies in the past two years. A multimillion-dollar deal to sell a biotech drug developed overseas in China.
A new anti-cancer drug licensed by Eli Lilly and Company was developed by a start-up company in the suburbs of Shanghai over a period of 6 years. The drug is extracted from the ovary cells of Chinese hamsters. Lily is currently planning to test the new drug on American patients.
Rival Merck plans to test another cancer drug in the US, developed by another startup close to Hong Kong.
These cases are not isolated, the report said. China has long been the world's supplier of cheap bulk and generic drugs, and is now becoming a major producer of important new medicines such as biotech drugs. China currently has the second-highest number of clinical trials of biotherapeutics, after the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health; biopharmaceuticals are derived from biological substances such as animal cells or bacteria.
The situation has drawn the attention of some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
In 2015, Merck sent executives to visit a large number of Chinese start-ups and set up a dedicated innovation center in Shanghai. Johnson & Johnson also established a similar center in Shanghai in 2014 to capture technological breakthroughs in China. Over the past two years, Eli Lilly, Merck, Tessaro (TSRO) and Inca (INCY) have signed multimillion-dollar deals with Chinese companies to sell biotech drugs developed overseas.
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Unlike chemical drugs, biopharmaceuticals have revolutionized the treatment of diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Biopharmaceuticals have been lucratively developed for decades by Western drugmakers in their own labs. Eight of the world's top 10 best-selling drugs are biopharmaceuticals, according to consultancy Frost Sullivan. But the American Drug Research Institute and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, the industry group, say each biopharma costs more than $1 billion to develop and can take more than 10 years to market.
Under pressure from a series of costly failures and patent-protected biopharmaceuticals, global pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to other regions for new breakthroughs.
According to reports, as part of the reform of the local pharmaceutical industry, the Chinese government has invested heavily in domestic pharmaceutical companies and has taken incentives to set up a project to attract Chinese scientists working overseas to return home and invest dozens of dollars in biotechnology. One hundred million U.S. dollars. The start-up technology park has also accelerated the piloting and approval of newly developed biotech drugs.
According to the report, most Chinese start-ups started by copying or improving existing biotech drugs, but some of them are entering the riskier business of developing biologics that have not yet been tested in humans.
Shanghai-based Cinda Biopharmaceutical (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. struck China's largest deal in 2015, when Eli Lilly spent $56 million to jointly develop three cancer. The two drugs are the result of research and development by Synda Biopharmaceuticals. If the above-mentioned drugs meet the standards, Xinda Biopharmaceuticals expects to generate more than $1.4 billion in revenue in the next 10 years.
According to reports, in a small laboratory of Innovent Biopharmaceuticals located in Suzhou Industrial Park, dozens of cylindrical glass vessels called "bioreactors" preserve Chinese hamster cells commonly used around the world. in medical research. The drug is used to prevent a gene that interferes with the body's ability to fight cancer, as part of the Lilly agreement.
Synda Biopharmaceuticals has begun testing the drug in patients in China, and Eli Lilly is preparing to apply for its own clinical trial in the United States. Once the drug is approved, Lilly said it plans to sell it in global markets outside of China. In China, the company has joint marketing rights with Innovent Biopharmaceuticals.
The boom in China's biotech industry has attracted the participation of venture capital, pushing China's life sciences investment to a record $5.3 billion last year, a nearly 10-fold increase from five years ago, according to China Biotech.
In 2008, Lilly and Company launched a venture capital fund to invest in Asia. Since then, almost all of the fund’s $500 million in investments have gone to Chinese biotech start-ups.
A decade ago, China wasn't even within the realm of biotech, but it has become a force to be reckoned with, said the fund's partners.