GSK breathes hope into respiratory biz in country

Global biopharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline is scheduled to submit market approvals in China for about 15 new drugs and indications over the next three years and more than 20 clinical research projects will be conducted in the country, said a senior executive of the company.

Some are innovative solutions in the respiratory field, a key category of the United Kingdom-based company's portfolio, with quantity and frequency ranking high among the top multinational pharmaceutical giants, said Yu Jinyi, vice-president and head of respiratory for GSK China, during an interview with China Daily on April 19.

"The fast progress and ambitious plans benefit from the country's constantly deepening healthcare reforms, especially the accelerated approval and supervision of innovative medicines," said Yu.

For the company's respiratory business, where it has marketed 16 products based on five decades of expertise, China is one of the prioritized markets and a strategic key market with the layout continuously upgraded as respiratory diseases show a rising trend in the country. The government has improved medical insurance coverage and the people's health awareness has increased, said Yu.

A paper by Chinese researchers published in The Lancet in 2019 showed that China had 45.7 million asthma patients aged 20 and older and 15 million asthma sufferers aged below 20.

"Voices from the China market are significant for the company at a global level, from formulating macro strategies to discussing the global prediction of a particular brand or which tactics to use," he said.

Also, constant investment in the China market will surely support research and development, clinical research and marketing, added Yu.

Clinical research in the country will be further accelerated as an approach to fulfill the company's goal to market new drugs in the country simultaneously with its global goals.

For example, in a clinical study regarding the first inhalation therapy that only needs to be taken once daily to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which was marketed in China in 2019, Chinese patients were recruited at the same time research kicked off globally.

GSK currently has two potential COPD and two potential asthma trials with Chinese patients, Yu said.

China's inhalation therapy market approval came two years after it obtained market approval globally, far more rapidly than the situation in previous years. He said more shortened time gaps will be witnessed soon.

Novel models, including those involving digital technologies, have also been adopted to explore new channels to benefit more patients, said Yu.

For instance, the company has partnered with the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health since 2017 to establish a collaborative network and database for managing asthma patients in China.

The collaboration entered into the second phase last year to recruit 110 hospitals to join and register clinical data for approximately 18,000 asthma sufferers, aiming to ultimately improve the level of disease control of such patients in the country.

Yu said the company is taking digital approaches in patient management and doctor education, and hopefully, more programs will be deployed to realize an elevation in education efficiency for doctors in the near future.

Shen Huahao, vice-chairman of the respiratory branch of the Chinese Medical Association, said that more efforts should be made to popularize standard medical treatment for asthma patients at a grassroots level.

The control rate of asthma in urban regions is only 28.5 percent, and the rate is lower in rural areas due to the huge gap in medical resources, said Shen, who is also director of the department of respiratory and critical care medicine at the Second Affiliated Hospital with Zhejiang University School of Medicine.