Wuxi apptec: do not be a pharmaceutical enterprise, only provide R & D services for pharmaceutical enterprises

If we think of new drug research and development as a kitchen, pharmaceutical companies are like chefs Pharmaceutical R & D outsourcing service (CRO) company, Wuxi apptec new drug development Co., Ltd (referred to as "apptec") is responsible for making a start, or even ordering spoon and pot work, so that chefs can concentrate on cooking Different from the strategy of "in China for China" of most local pharmaceutical enterprises, from its establishment in 2001 to 2012, Wuxi apptec's strategy is "in China for world", mainly serving foreign pharmaceutical enterprises that pay more attention to innovative drug research and development However, in recent years, domestic pharmaceutical enterprises have gradually developed, and the domestic market has become the next target of Wuxi apptec On September 29, the total market value of Wuxi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd exceeded 14.6 billion yuan, slightly higher than that of humanwell Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd of 14.557 billion yuan Wuxi apptec is now the largest pharmaceutical R & D outsourcing service (CRO) Company in Asia Li Ge, the CEO of Wuxi apptec, a research and development outsourcing company, was born in Beijing After graduating from the Department of chemistry of Peking University in 1989, he went to Columbia University to study in the United States, and obtained a doctor's degree in organic chemistry in 1993 In 1999, at the invitation of his alma mater Peking University, Li Ge returned home to introduce the important role of "combinatorial chemistry technology" in drug research to the leaders of the Ministry of health and the domestic pharmaceutical industry During this visit back home, he found a problem in the domestic pharmaceutical industry: many pharmaceutical companies are no inferior to foreign pharmaceutical companies in terms of basic equipment and production capacity, but due to the lack of sustained innovation capacity, they can only rely on generic pharmaceutical production for a long time At that time, it took billions of dollars and at least 10 years for a new drug to be developed and finally put on the market If the domestic pharmaceutical enterprises can give some links of new drug research and development to cro platform, they can independently develop new drugs with intellectual property rights in a relatively short time Li Ge then came up with the idea of creating an R & D outsourcing company On the road of entrepreneurship, both dream and reality must be considered Li Ge found that many of the chemical undergraduates who graduated in China every year could not find jobs or were paid very low But as long as they are properly trained, these graduates are excellent talents for R & D outsourcing This gave Li Ge a reassuring pill In 2001, Li Ge resolutely returned to China to set up yaomingkant, becoming the "first crab eater" in the domestic cro field, and started the crazy "circle movement" Now, to ask who is the pharmaceutical enterprise that employs the most chemical professionals in the world, the general answer is Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, etc., but the answer is actually Wuxi apptec: there are 3500 chemical professionals here, who can carry out hundreds or even thousands of projects at the same time, greatly improving the efficiency of research and development To build an integrated R & D platform, with the growing of Wuxi apptec's plate, its human cost advantage has also begun to weaken In this case, Li Ge did not control the cost by means of layoff, reduction of staff and salary reduction, but further gave full play to the stock advantage of human resources to build an "integrated R & D platform" This change is closely related to Li Ge's unique understanding of cro: as a R & D platform company, the most important thing is not only the price, but also the comprehensiveness of service, the reliability of technology, and the protection of customer information In the early days of its establishment, Wuxi apptec mainly engaged in the basic research of the synthesis of small molecular compounds, which was similar to the "dish washing and side dishes" in the kitchen At the end of 2008, Li Jian, executive director of domestic new drug R & D Service Department of Wuxi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., came to Wuxi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd from Johnson & Johnson in the United States, participated in the construction of "integrated R & D platform", and committed to covering the company's service scope in every link of pharmaceutical R & D The efforts of Li Jian and his team members have not been in vain: today, Wuxi apptec has extended its services to 15 fields, including the production and sales of biological preparations, antibody and biological diagnostic reagents, clinical research and development, and product registration services However, so many "chefs" come to order services How to ensure that the recipes are not spread out? Just like Alipay provides security functions for Taobao network transactions, general pharmacy also set up an internal management system to ensure that customer secrets are not leaked Some important business documents and research materials will be submitted to Shanghai Notary Office for independent notarization "The first-class pharmaceutical companies in the world have chosen Wuxi apptec as their partner, which in itself represents their recognition of the intellectual property protection of Wuxi apptec." Li Jian said From "external list" to "internal list" in August this year, in the "2014 China's top 20 most competitive pharmaceutical listed companies selection" sponsored by China Pharmaceutical Enterprise Management Association, Wuxi apptec ranked 12th as the only pharmaceutical R & D outsourcing service company on the list, ranking higher than Fosun Pharmaceutical and humanwell pharmaceutical Wuxi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd is also one of the "least famous" enterprises among the domestic pharmaceutical listed companies The low-key Wuxi apptec's overseas performance is quite impressive After founding Wuxi apptec, Li Ge found an embarrassing phenomenon: the scale of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises is generally small Even with the help of Wuxi apptec, they are more willing to produce generic drugs that can make short-term profits, and they are reluctant to develop innovative drugs with high risk and investment Li Ge decided to focus on overseas customers, only waiting for the right time, and then using the experience learned from foreign cooperation to help domestic enterprises to make innovative drugs Looking at the development history of Wuxi apptec in the first ten years of its establishment, the main customers are almost all "external orders": Pfizer, MSD, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and other top 20 pharmaceutical companies in the world are all included For domestic enterprises, Wuxi apptec mostly only provides some single data testing work Nowadays, domestic pharmaceutical companies are growing, they are not willing to simply operate generic drugs and APIs, and Wuxi apptec ushered in the "spring" of domestic business On August 21, humanwell pharmaceutical announced that it would entrust Wuxi apptec with 30 million yuan for preclinical research and development of a new drug The main treatment direction of the new drugs is rheumatoid arthritis and cancer If the research and development is successful, clinical trials can be reported to the State Food and Drug Administration in 2016 Li Jian said that the above project is an integrated project of Wuxi apptec, covering drug design, synthesis, screening, pharmacological research and many other aspects, so it will be completed by Wuxi apptec in different R & D bases in Wuhan, Shanghai, Suzhou and so on "I can say that half of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in the top 100 list have become our key customers." Li said that it is not convenient to disclose more detailed information of domestic customers for reasons such as confidentiality At present, the R & D centers distributed by Wuxi apptec have become a bridge for cooperation between the company and local universities and pharmaceutical enterprises "For example, Wuxi apptec Wuhan R & D center can not only conduct business docking with local pharmaceutical enterprises, but also cooperate with the State Key Laboratory of Virology of Wuhan University and the organ transplantation research institute of Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of science and technology, which are the leading research institutions in China, to learn from each other's strengths and make up for each other's weaknesses and develop by taking advantage of their strengths." Li Jian said