Chinese biopharmaceuticals are trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma: the original innovative drugs have little investment and get together with innovative drugs

At present, both anti-tumor generic drugs and real original innovative drugs (First-in-class) in my country's biopharmaceutical industry have entered the prisoner’s dilemma, and the difference is only in different cells.

01 Prisoners’ dilemma of generic drugs: serious homogeneity, too many investment projects and amounts

Generic drugs are drugs with expired foreign patents.

According to public data, in the first half of 2020, a total of 484 PD-1 new drug clinical trials were announced for the first time in China.

Zhou Yunshu, Chairman of Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, said at a meeting: “Now the entire PD-1 is a prisoner’s dilemma.

On December 28, 2020, the outcome of medical insurance negotiations was that the prices of PD-1 monoclonal antibodies of three domestic companies (Junshi, Hengrui, and BeiGene) entered the medical insurance catalog, which is basically the price limit of domestic PD-1, which is infinitely close.

What's more serious is that the PD-1/PD-L1 drug clustering is only a microcosm of the homogenization of domestic pharmaceutical companies' R&D.

The blind investment of capital leads to a bubble, which not only wastes a lot of money, but also covers up good projects.

02 The Prisoner’s Dilemma of First-in-class Original Innovative Drug Project: Little Investment

It stands to reason that the original innovation from 0 to 1 is encouraged by various policies and media.

This seems very contradictory.

Original biological drugs are not favored by investors at all, and they are really in a prisoner’s dilemma.

Different from the Prisoner's Dilemma of Generic Drugs, the original innovative drugs should be easily competed by various capitals in theory and publicity policies, but this is not the case in practice.

1) Investors and local parks usually invest in financial support to cooperate with the work of government departments.

2) Because the original innovative drugs, especially those that are not available in developed countries such as the United States (for example, focusing on the types of urgently needed drugs with a large number of patients in my country) are simply classified as high-risk investment fields and should be avoided.

3) Originality from 0 to 1 often requires great courage, luck, foresight and perseverance.

4) In many cases, investment and parks divide the things to be done into innovation and entrepreneurship.

5) Various forms in various parks are filled with various indicators.

This is why genuine original innovative drugs have become prisoners in a difficult situation.

Everyone knows that to open up new fields or new drugs for disease treatment mechanisms involves taking certain investment risks.
But this is part of the law of social development.
From a big point of view, to advance human civilization, we must have fearless courage; from the perspective of biopharmaceuticals, taking a certain investment risk to carry out drug innovation will definitely have high returns, just like Pfizer, Roche, Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Gilead Sciences, Amgen, and Moderna have few competitors for original innovative drugs.
Original drugs monopolize the market to ensure profitability and the low-cost treatment of common drugs is a good combination of patients.

In fact, these original biological drugs are based on a solid basic theory, coupled with subversive innovative designs and corresponding leading technical means, are real new drugs with great clinical value to solve the needs of patients who have not yet treated drug diseases.
Although there are risks, the risks of targeted biological drugs are already very low.
What else is required? There is no pie in the sky!

It can be seen that there are many innovative and technological platform projects that have received investment in each park.
In fact, many of them are actually licensed new drugs (License-in), which meets the taste of review experts; a few projects that compete with American rivals are often at least half a year earlier.
The "hurricanes" that have already been blown in the United States have made waves after they landed here through the Pacific Ocean.
These are signs of the reliability of the project for the review experts and the park, especially the work experience in National University X is an important basis for passing the review.

Such a standard is actually micro-innovation or even pseudo-innovation.
It is easy for people with ulterior motives to tell innovation stories and leave after making money in the capital market.
This situation is not uncommon!

The true original innovative drugs are likely to have no competing projects and rivals in the United States.
They are valuable to patients around the world, at least to the majority of patients in China.
This is the essence of true original value.

Why do some investors and local parks prefer to spend a lot of money to buy innovative pharmaceutical companies or license-in innovative projects abroad and ignore their true originality?

This is related to the management concepts of funds and science and technology development parks, especially from the perspective of financial management.
Choosing the "micro-innovation" of generic drugs or introducing foreign innovation institutes is less responsible, safer, and good-looking for evaluation.
There are no comparable successful projects for truly disruptive originals.
They are relatively difficult to understand, and the risks seem to be high, so it is best not to touch them.
Therefore, the truly original and innovative drugs needed by patients and the market are in a prisoner's dilemma where no investment can be obtained.
The reality is that innovation is just talking, much like the ancient Ye Gong described by the idiom Ye Gong Haolong.

The impact of the 2020 new coronary pneumonia pandemic far exceeds the disease itself, and has a profound impact on society and the economy.
Humans use various scientific and technological means to fight against the pulmonary coronavirus, and only innovation can fight the endless changes of the virus in a timely and effective manner.
As we enter 2021, we hope that biopharmaceutical technology innovation can receive real attention and support, so that mankind has sufficient technical reserves and preparations for the next unknown disease (Disease X) invasion.

As the Director-General of the World Health Organization Tan Desai said: History tells us that the new crown pneumonia will not be the last pandemic, and everyone must learn a lesson from the new crown pneumonia pandemic.

What is the lesson? We must sincerely support the research and development of original drugs, and don't be the dragon's father.