China R&D Reader

All global large pharmaceutical companies have R&D centers in China, but they are using different models in their R&D efforts.

Top R&D leaders from global pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Roche, AstraZeneca and Merck, explained their R&D models and lessons learned from the past years in a roundtable discussion at the Asia Pharma R&D Leaders conference held in Shanghai recently.

The main function of Lilly’s China R&D center is supporting Lilly’s global development. Only a small part of its R&D effort is focused on de novo discovery. In this regard, Eli Lilly works with academics and CRO partners across China, and these efforts have generated several drug candidates, two of which are in phase I clinical trials.

AstraZeneca’s China R&D Center, dubbed the “Innovation Center”, focuses on “translational research.” Richard Wang, director of strategic alliance and collaboration in Asia, said, “We have a lot of discovery compounds in the pipeline; the key is to convert them into medicine.” AstraZeneca’s China R&D center has an in-house research team, but also works with external entities including academia, CROs and other pharma service providers. Three drug candidates have come out of these efforts, and the drug candidates are all targeting diseases prevalent in Asia.

Lundbeck started its China R&D by outsourcing chemistry work, which gradually turned into more commitments to CROs – now full projects are given to CROs. The main challenge is to integrate the in-house discovery work from its R&D labs in Europe with the CRO work in China.

When asked about what they have learned doing R&D in China, Eli Lilly’s site head of China Tony Zhang said, “External work can increase the efficiency of the drug development value chain, but we have to define clearly what we do, and how to check it.” Others mentioned the importance of management of human factors: “Chinese researchers are competent and driven, but sometimes lack experience.” Aside from managing researchers, the relationship management between scientists, CROs and headquarters is a challenging task as well.

There are significant economic reasons for global large pharmas to build their R&D efforts in China, including time, cost, market and talent. But aside from economics, in the measurement of increased success rate of drug discovery, will China do better than developed nations?