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Until recently, there was little or no mention of business activity within the emerging Chinese life sciences industry. However, as the Chinese middle class continues to grow, the need and demand for pharmaceutical and biotechnology drugs (including vaccines and other biologics continues) to grow at a frenetic pace. Further, a growing abundance of US-trained scientists has allowed the Chinese life science industry to develop much more quickly than anticipated. Also, many major pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Roche and Novartis have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in China and have already established world class Chinese R&D facilities. Finally, unlike in most Western countries, the Chinese government controls roughly 80% of the pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturing that takes place in China. Together, this suggests that China has quietly established itself as a life sciences power to be reckoned with! To that end, there were two reports that came across the transom this morning that piqued my interest. 

The first report was about a company called Lotus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

"Lotus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a growing developer and producer of prescription drugs and licensed national seller of pharmaceutical products in the People's Republic of China ("PRC"), reported the groundbreaking ceremony on March 9 to construct a new building complex on the grounds of its production facility in Beijing.

Officials of Beijing municipal and Chaoyang district governments, officers of the China State Food & Drug, and representatives of both state-owned and private pharmaceutical companies attended the ceremony. CEO, Zhongyi Liu, welcomed the guests. "After a year of planning, we are pleased to start the construction of the new building complex and expect to finish the construction by July, interior decoration by September and GMP certification by December of this year," he said. "This is a new page for Lotus' development and it will provide important impetus to profitable growth, which is anticipated to reach $150 million in annual sales during the first year after the facility, is fully operational."

The second reported on plans to build a venture-back, “private” contract manufacturing facility that specializes in biomanufacturing in metropolitan Beijing.

"AutekBio, Inc., SUMA Ventures and Beijing E-Town Harvest International Capital Management Corporation, a venture capital group from Beijing Municipal Government announced a joint investment of more than US$100m to develop a new contract manufacturing organization (CMO) for biopharmaceutical industry in China. This joint effort led by AutekBio represents strong interests from both private investment sector and government to establish world quality capability and capacity in biopharmaceutical manufacturing in China.

The new joint venture will build up a world class R&D and manufacturing center in southern Beijing to service international biologic developments, with combined volumes of bioreactors up to 20,000 liters in multiple production lines (trains). The firm will also benefit from financial, regulatory and other supports from the Chinese government for the biotech industry." 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that China has clearly set its sights on establishing itself as player on the global life sciences stage. After spending a week in China during the country’s preparation for the Beijing Games, I discovered that China can achieve any goal that it sets for itself in very short order.  

Until next time...  

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try China)!!!!!! 

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From time to time, I come across some interesting facts and statistics that are worth noting. This month’s issue of Pharmaceutical Technology Europe offered several things that were blog-worthy. Here they are: 

• IMS Health has readjusted the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in 2009 from 4.5-5.5% to 2.5-3.6% with sales expected to exceed $820 billion
• The size of the US pharmaceutical market is expected to contract by 1-2% in 2009
• Emerging markets like China, India and Brazil are expected to contribute to more than half of the global market growth in 2009 and sustain an average growth rate of 40% by 2013
• The size of the Middle East pharmaceutical market is predicted to exceed $18 billion by 2014

As one industry analyst put it “This high level of growth in emerging markets, combined with the contraction of the US market and ongoing low single-digit growth in other developed markets, is driving the pharmaceutical market to a new world order.” If I had money, I would be investing in generic pharmaceutical companies and follow-on biologic manufacturers!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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According to a recent report from the consulting firm Ernst and Young, cost cutting and downsizing are no longer the primary objectives for most pharmaceutical companies. Instead, they are mulling over the new challenges that universal health care may bring and how to better reach consumers in emerging markets. 

In a recent interview, Carolyn Buck Luce, one of the paper’s co-authors said “in our previous report, cost containment was one of the most important initiatives. In this report we found more of a balanced approach where optimizing cost was [just] one the many objectives. Only 40 percent of the executives said optimizing costs was their most important initiative, compared to a similar study in 2007 where 92 percent of those surveyed ranked cost reduction as their main initiative. In the latest survey, 66 percent of executives said the most important strategic initiative was reinvigorating the R&D pipeline, while 40 percent said expanding into new markets and restructuring their marketing and sales programs to become more customer-centric were their main areas of focus. “

One of the most telling quotes in the piece is: “There was an awful lot of focus on costs a year ago, when companies realized there was a lot of fat in their companies and a lot of opportunity to cut costs.” Does that mean that pharma really didn’t have to lay off tens of thousands of employees over the past year? It kind of makes you wonder doesn’t it? And, if you believe that pharma is truly finished with downsizing--would you be interested in a great deal on some land in Florida?

Until next time…

Good Luck and Try to Hang On to Your Job!!!!!!!!

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