Beijing aims to refill medicine chest with “Made in China” drugs

REUTERS: China, already a global powerhouse in high-tech areas from solar panels to bullet trains, is turning its industrial might to the challenge of making more of its own drugs for a vast and ageing population.

Given the 10 years or more it typically takes to bring a new medicine to market, original “Made in China” treatments won’t arrive overnight, but multinationals are already encountering more competition from local generic drugs that look set for a quantum leap in quality. The stakes are high. China is the world’s second biggest drugs market behind the United States, and fast food, smoking and pollution have fuelled a rise in cancers and chronic heart and lung diseases.

The country also has more diabetics than any other in the world, with numbers expected to hit 151 million by 2040 from 110 million today, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

That has made China a sweet spot for Denmark’s Novo Nordisk; the world’s biggest insulin producer has mined a rich seam in the country since opening production facilities here in 1995.

By 2010, it dominated 63 percent of China’s insulin market. But it has recently been losing ground to local competitors cheered on by Beijing.

“China is going to be tough for us for the next couple of years,” said Chief Science Officer Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen. “Right now, the country is very focused on building domestic production.”

Local rivals are selling both cutprice basic insulin and sophisticated modern versions, including a biosimilar copy of Sanofi’s Lantus made by Chinese biotech specialist Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals.

Greater local competition is also evident in other areas, helping the top 10 Chinese drugmakers grow sales 12 percent on average this year, according to IMS Consulting - twice the rate of multinationals, which suffered a setback from a bribery scandal at Glaxosmithkline two years ago.

GSK itself has seen its drug sales slump.

Increasing local competition is part of a structural upheaval in China’s hospital-dominated prescription drug market.