Shao Liming's team published an opinion piece in the journal Nat Rev Drug Discov: The Innovation Landscape of China's Pharmaceutical Industry

Recently, Shao Liming, professor of the School of Pharmacy of Fudan University and director of the Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Center for Drug R&D, and his team published a review article entitled "Innovation in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry" in the journal Nature Review Drug Discovery, which clearly shows the current situation of innovation and research and development in China's pharmaceutical industry.
He pointed out that improving the quality of innovation has become the top priority for the future development of China's pharmaceutical industry
.
(Original link: https://doi.
org/10.
1038/d41573-022-00167-2)

Over the past decade, China's pharmaceutical industry has accelerated its innovation transformation
, driven by complex medical needs, rapid market expansion, and comprehensive regulatory reforms.
Although China has become the world's second largest pharmaceutical market, most pharmaceutical companies are still in the early stages
of innovative drug development.
According to the list of the "Global Top 1000 Pharmaceutical Companies" released by Torreya, a world-renowned investment bank, in 2021, the research team selected the world's top 20 multinational pharmaceutical companies and China's top 20 pharmaceutical companies, and compared the R&D pipelines of these companies in detail from multiple dimensions such as project progress, therapeutic areas and target innovation, clearly describing the global position
of China's pharmaceutical industry in innovation and R&D.

According to the data included in the Cortellis database, there is a significant gap between the number of drugs approved for marketing between the top 20 Chinese pharmaceutical companies and the top 20 multinational pharmaceutical companies from 2012 to 2021.
The gap in the size of the clinical pipeline is relatively small
.
In addition, the product pipelines of the top 20 multinational pharmaceutical companies are more diverse, while the top 20 Chinese pharmaceutical companies are more inclined to single therapeutic areas (such as oncology).

In terms of target innovation, each of the 20 multinational pharmaceutical companies has more than 50% potential Fist-in-class drugs in their pipelines; Among the top 20 Chinese pharmaceutical companies, only BeiGene and Innovent Biologics, have 50% of their pipelines targeting novel targets or mechanisms of action, compared with less than 30%
of other companies.
Classifying and evaluating the innovation capabilities and pipeline scale of the top 20 multinational and Chinese pharmaceutical companies, the four-quadrant chart clearly locates their position
in the global competition of innovative drug research and development.

In general, China's pharmaceutical industry is still in the early stage of industrial transformation, and the gap between the R&D capabilities of leading enterprises and the R&D capabilities of global leading enterprises is still large, and this status quo will continue for a long time
.
Most of China's leading pharmaceutical companies tend to prefer relatively conservative innovative R&D strategies to avoid risks in investing in new targets or new mechanism drugs, and in order to be more competitive in the global pharmaceutical market, China's pharmaceutical industry needs to seek breakthroughs in continuous investment, resource integration and structural change, and focus on improving the quality
of innovation in future development.

Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Center for Drug R&D is the second batch of knowledge service platforms
for Shanghai universities established at the end of 2012 with the support of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Fudan University, relying on the School of Pharmacy of Fudan University.
Focusing on the development trend, policy environment, R&D strategy and innovation ecology of the biopharmaceutical industry, the center's think tank has published a series of related research results in the past few years, including the annual outlook of the biopharmaceutical industry, high-quality research papers and consulting reports, etc.
, to continue to serve the innovation transformation and development of
the biopharmaceutical industry.

Research series results of the center's think tank:

1.
XU Lili,SHAO Liming.
Outlook for 2018:A new era of rational drug innovation and development in China[J].
Progress in Pharmacy, 2018, 42(02): 138-140.

2.
ZHENG Yilin,SHAO Liming.
Outlook for 2019:Seeking a new balance point for the survival and development of Chinese biopharmaceutical enterprises[J].
Progress in Pharmacy, 2019, 43(03): 191-193.

3.
Outlook 2020: Vitality in the Pain of China's Biopharmaceutical Industry Transformation

4.
KONG Linghui,SHAO Liming.
Outlook for 2021:Innovation opportunities for Chinese biopharmaceutical enterprises in uncertain environment[J].
Progress in Pharmacy, 2021, 45(03): 222-226.

5.
KONG Linghui,SHAO Liming.
Outlook for 2022: Establish a new benchmark in the biopharmaceutical industry with equal emphasis on clinical value and innovation quality[J].
Pharmaceutical Progress, 2021, 45(12): 948-952.

6.
Shao L, Xu L, Li Q, Chakravarthy R, Yang Z, Kaitin K.
Regulatory watch: Innovative drug availability in China.
Nat Rev Drug Discov.
2016, 15(11): 739-740.

7.
Xu L, Shao L.
CHINA’S National Reimbursement Drug List 2017.
DIA Global Forum Value & Access, 2017 July, 19.

8.
Xu L, Gao H, Kaitin K, Shao L.
Reforming China's drug regulatory system.
Nat Rev Drug Discov.
2018, 17(12): 858-859.

9.
He Q, Li Q, Lv F, Kaitin K, Shao L.
A Survey of Survival Outcomes for Targeted Cancer Drugs Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Ther Innov Regul Sci.
2021, 55(4): 676-684.

10.
Kong L, Li Q, Kaitin K, Shao L.
Innovation in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry.
Nat Rev Drug Discov.
2022.
doi: 10.
1038/d41573-022-00167-2.