Posted on 05/29/2007 5:42:36 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is the latest pharma heavyweight to set up a drug research centre in China.
Jingwu Zang has been appointed to run the new R&D facility in Shanghai, effective as of June. The centre will focus on creating new drugs for neurodegenerative disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
Several companies are looking to exploit the growth of China within the pharma industry. Over the next three years, China is predicted to become the joint fifth largest pharma market, alongside the UK with an estimated value of $24bn (€18bn), according to data from the Boston Consulting Group.
This trend was further highlighted just last week, when DrugResearcher.com reported that three Shanghai-based contract research organisations (CROs) have teamed up to form an R&D alliance.
GSK hopes the new centre will eventually direct global research within its therapeutic area, with the company refocusing its "largely UK-based neurology drug discovery efforts on finding new therapies for pain, epilepsy and brain injury", according to GSK's head of R&D, Dr Moncef Slaoui.
He said: "We are entering an exciting period of expansion for our R&D organisation as it builds on the strength of the superb science now being conducted in China. We intend to be part of a future in which the phrase 'discovered in China' is heard as often as 'made in China' is heard today."
Dr Zang's appointment to run the facility comes after he was the founding director at the Institute of Health Sciences in Shanghai. The Institute is an affiliate of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Under Dr Zang's direction, the Institute grew to comprise a staff of 150 along with around 250 graduate students.
"Dr Zang has demonstrated his capacity to assemble the talent required to make a success of a new R&D initiative," explained Dr Slaoui.
In March, Novo Nordisk announced plans to expand its presence in China beyond its R&D centre through a collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Science to establish a new diabetes research foundation.
Novartis has also set up the so-called Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) in Shanghai's Zhanjiang Park. Its first integrated R&D centre in China, Novartis described the NIBR as "a key part of our global R&D network". The company also collaborate with drug research arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Shanghai Institute for Materia Medica (SIMM). Paul Herrling, Novartis head of corporate research recently explained that the goal of the initiative was "drug discovery with purified natural compounds from plants and fungi used in traditional Chinese Medicine."
GSK has also worked with the SIMM; starting17 clinical studies in China during 2006 and the pharma giants said it plans an additional 18 in 2007.
The growth of the Chinese pharma market is part of a wider trend across South-East Asia. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently interviewed 185 senior pharmaceutical executives across nine different territories in the region; China, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
The subsequent report entitled "Gearing up for a Global Gravity Shift", revealed that 58 per cent of the companies believe that "the centre of gravity of the global pharmaceutical market will be in Asia rather than North America and Europe in the near future."
Oh, wonderful. Now it’s not enough to import poisons from China to mix into our supplements and pharmaceuticals; we need to have them poisoned over there.
Quality control for your drugs, anyone?
This is putting a lot of American chemists out of work. (Read “Chemical and Engineering News” to learn about the problem.) Of course the morons in Washington want to increase the number of visas that are available for foreign scientists to be brought into this country to replace American chemists in the few jobs that are left for them as companies move their operations overseas.
I suppose the ones from China will be counterfeit.
sw
Quality control for your drugs, anyone?
It’s called the FDA — one of them useless gumint agencies filled with over-paid, gubmint workers with giant pensions who filling out paperwork. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
Zheng Xiaoyu, head of the State Food and Drug Administration from 1998 until his sacking in 2005, was convicted yesterday in a Beijing court of taking 6.49 million yuan ($1.04 million) in bribes and for dereliction of duty.
Zheng, 62, was arrested last year for accepting kickbacks to fast-track drug approvals. In one case under Zheng's watch, a tainted antibiotic approved by his agency killed at least 10 patients last year.
Read more at
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/death-sentence-for-corrupt-food-and-drug-boss/2007/05/29/1180205251341.html
Gives you real confidence huh?
One of the few good things about trial lawyers is that they tend to keep the drug companies honest. American pharmaceuticals have too much to lose to poison their patients. Sometimes they make a mistake, but on the whole they have good quality control.
China has shown itself to be completely unresponsive when people or governments complain about being poisoned by their products. They simply deny it, and deny us any opportunity to investigate. And good luck to the trial lawyers if they try to sue the Chinese.
Imagine being able to jump right to phase iii clinical trials on prisoners without having to bother with those pesky monkeys and years of analysis.
It is appropriate to be concerned about quality control. I was discussing a similar case with a biochemist from Eli Lilly about 2 years ago. She said that the first few batches, maybe the first year, everything is on spec. After that, the quality goes drastically downhill. I assume this may be due to the Chinese managers (or should I say Party hacks) assume that after a year of good compliance the company home office would get complacent and not keep tabs on things.
Not to mention the very real risk of theft of intellectual property.
There have also been documented cases of deliberately adulterated nutritional supplements. One specific case I am familiar with was a case where 500mg capsules of L-Tyrosine, an essential amino acid, was found to have an “undocumented ingredient” of 50mg of nandralone per capsule. Such a concentration goes far beyond chance cross contamination from using the same machinery for another product run - this was deliberately added. I guess when some consumer sees this low cost brand that has been “juiced” and uses it for a while, this may get the consumer thinking that the “budget” brand of amino acid supplement is great stuff.
Yes, there was such a case. Greg Moninger, a professional cyclist, failed a drug test due to such adulterated supplements. And the source of this particular brand of supplement? You guessed correctly.
The People Republic of China.
Like the drug companies don’t make enough money now.
Thank you for the inside information. This is pretty much what I would expect, knowing how the system operates.
China is NOT a capitalist country, contrary to the popular impression. It is a centralized, managed economy in the Communist mode, in which the party apparatchiks are currently ruling by dangling money and management positions before their underlings, instead of pure force and the threat of being sent to a laogai.
Many manufacturing operations are paying salaries that are higher than their profits, financed by bad debt loans from the Communist central bank, so they are always looking for ways to cut costs and keep the system going.
The pet food scam was deliberate. They used a poison, ethylene glycol, that would make the wheat gluten look as if it had a higher protein content in the tests that they expected it to undergo.
I can’t believe the drug companies are still considering doing this, because it looks as if this time the scandal will continue to break out into the press instead of the usual coverup.
Think UNLIMITED CIVIL LIABILITY, and research some of the more recent jury awards.
Think Merck.
Anyone who IS NOT thinking about offshoring that’s in a business with huge potential liabilities is simply irresponsible to thier shareholders now.
Until we do something about the litigation lottery, we’re screwed....
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