Innovation puts pharma sector in global league

As China has made substantial progress over the years across the industrial and supply chains of the pharmaceutical industry, from drug development and manufacturing to distribution and logistics, it has been playing a bigger role in the international pharmaceutical markets, experts said.

Specifically, increased R&D and digital capabilities of local players in recent years provide an array of alternative collaboration models for multinational pharmaceutical companies to leverage new and emerging local capabilities in China, the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market that is next only to the United States.

Data from the Ministry of Commerce showed the value of offshore medicine, including traditional Chinese medicine and biotechnology R&D service outsourcing in China, climbed nearly 20 percent year-on-year during the first seven months of the year to 32.8 billion yuan. In 2021, the full-year value was 60.86 billion yuan, up nearly 25 percent year-on-year.

Wang Dongtang, director-general of the department of trade in services and commercial services at the MOC, said the ministry has been promoting high-level opening-up and service trade development in the pharmaceutical sector through measures like supporting pilot works and innovations in service trade, expanding imports and exports of pharmaceutical services, and facilitating the development and upgrade of outsourcing services in the sector.

Jean-Christophe Pointeau, president of Pfizer Global Biopharmaceuticals Business China, said China is becoming an important source of innovations for Pfizer and the world.

"We have seen the rapid development of the Chinese domestic innovative biopharma sector in the last few years as an opportunity for multi-national corporations (MNCs).While we compete within our sector, there are also numerous ways in which our capabilities as an MNC are a natural complement to more agile startups in China' biotech sector. So, there will be more and more opportunities for partnerships," he said.

As of July 2022, Pfizer had 104 projects under study worldwide, covering phase-1 clinical trials to registration application, involving oncology, internal medicine, vaccines, inflammation and immunity, and rare diseases.

Its R&D center in China provides a full range of support services for global pipeline development projects, allowing China to participate in Pfizer's pipeline of global early-stage and pivotal clinical studies as early and as much as possible.

Pfizer China R&D has been collaborating with leading academic and university institutions in China. Through these collaborations, the company continues to advance the development of research and innovative medicines in China, he said.