Source: CCTV.com
03-14-2008 13:42
There's been tremendous innovation in China's pharmaceutical industry with both multi-national drug as well as local companies keen to step up research.
 |
| There's been tremendous innovation in China's pharmaceutical industry with both multi-national drug as well as local companies keen to step up research. |
Outsourcing to contract research organizations in China has been a key driver of the changes in the pharmaceutical industry here. And now that trend is extending beyond research services.
Mark Lotter, CEO of Novamed said "Companies no longer are seeing the need to extract value internally across the entire value chain. And so the concept of outsourcing has started to gain a high degree of traction."
Novamed partners with and shepherds companies through the often-difficult drug development process. It offers everything from the testing of new drugs to the promotion of these drugs to Chinese hospitals.
Mark Lotter said "We've chosen to focus on the drug development area. Essentially, we look to target companies already in the development cycle. We'd look at doing part of the development in China. We've also selected to facilitate development in other emerging markets, like South Africa, where you would have the Caucasian subset, which would be very important for the global file development."
Arthur Mok, Partner of Hogan & Hartson said "I think there's a great opportunity here to actually build a new model, a new paradigm, a new pharmaceutical business here. In China, the real advantage is we're really in the first or second chapter of a long story of evolution. So China can leapfrog beyond some of these legacy aspects that have held back large pharmaceutical companies, and learn to be more adaptable. Probably be more of a virtual pharmaceutical company based sector than you would see in Europe or North America."
Analysts say the virtualization of pharmaceutical companies will continue as more firms focus on what they're good at and leave the rest for someone else.
As local pharmaceutical companies grow, many have turned to venture capitalists to help expand their businesses. VC investment in life sciences was up 400% in 2007, year-on-year. Nisa Leung is a partner at Qiming Ventures, one of the most active investors in the Chinese healthcare industry. She explains where their focus has been.
Nisa Leung, Partner of Qiming Venture Partners said "We're looking at two prongs. One is the domestic market--distribution, sales, and possibly new drugs as well, development, though they're far and few in between. Another area that we're very interested in is the export contract manufacturing, which has only really just begun."
