Promoting a quantity-to-quality transition in China's drug innovation

Innovation-driven development is a core strategy of China’s 13th Five-Year (2016-2020) Plan and biomedicine is a key driver of that innovation. Pharmaceutical innovation is not only an engine for long-term economic development but also contributes to people’s welfare.

In a bid to promote China’s pharmaceutical innovation, four pharmaceutical industry associations conducted the Study on Fostering a Sustainable Ecosystem for Drug Innovation in China and released their key findings on Monday, according to a posting on the website of the R&D-based Pharmaceutical Association Committee (RDPAC).

According to the study, remarkable achievements have been made in China’s pharmaceutical innovation in recent years; moreover, driven by such factors as policy, talent and capital, the R&D of innovative drugs in China demonstrates robust growth momentum. According to Nature Index, in 2015, 6,500 Chinese research papers were published in leading international chemistry and biology journals, a major increase from the figure of over 4,000 in 2012 and exceeding that of traditional developed countries except only the USA. In 2015, 69 innovative drugs entered into clinical stage, increasing from 21 in 2011, and 656 compounds were under research, which forecasts robust growth momentum in the coming years.