Why Foreign Pharma Comes to China

Posted by Stan on 11/15/07 • Categorized as China News

Cool post on an interestingly-titled blog, Dr Shock MD, on reasons that foreign pharmaceutical companies are in China:

  • Relative ease of recruiting patients with diseases under investigation
  • Substantially lower costs
  • A strong medical infrastructure
  • The cost for a researcher in China is as little as 20 percent of the cost in the United States

To my opinion there are some disadvantages to this development.

  • Protection of patients in trials is probably not as solid as in Europe and the US.
  • Data obtained from this research might not be applicable to patients in Europe and the US, two other important markets for these companies.
  • This could be due to differences in pharmacokinetics as well as diagnostic differences between very different cultures. Is depression in China tolerated and is it the same as in the US/Europe? and
  • Do they adhere in the same manner to for instance the DSM IV criteria?
  • Is money not a strong motivator for participation in trials?

The main points at the top of the Dr’s post are similar reasons for explaining why any FDI comes into China, not just pharma firms. However, he is right in pointing out problems associated with patient treatment and, as with any international testing, pharmacokinetics differences have to be looked at carefully (e.g. you don’t want to develop a drug that is metabolized faster in Asians than other folks).

With respect to patient treatment and informed consent issues, this is interesting stuff. In years past, you just went with whatever local standards dictated and you had no problems. In the age of sweatshop factory exposes in newspapers, environmental NGOs, and of course the insidious bloggers, you never know how/when information about your operations anywhere in the world is going to get out. MNCs have to not only follow local rules, but they also have to be quite aware of how following those local rules may be viewed by customers (and regulatory authorities) in your home country. (Yahoo! knows what I’m talking about here.)

I noticed that the Dr did not mention IP protection. Either this is off his radar screen as a topic or he didn’t see this as a problem. I would assume the former.

3 Comments

  1. Dr Shock
    Friday, November 16, 2007 • 4:17 am

    IP protection? Fill me in please.
    In The Netherlands patients don’t get paid to participate in research, I believe in the US they do or obtain other benefits such as free medical care.
    From our stand point participating in China and receiving money is far different than the research performed in our country.
    Regards Dr Shock

  2. Stan
    Friday, November 16, 2007 • 9:25 am

    Yes, the system here is not exactly what you would consider normal, and it certainly is not transparent. This is the problem that many MNCs have faced, and it gets worse when there is additional scrutiny on their global operations.

    As far as IP is concerned, you’re talking about giving local institutions access to cutting-edge processes, compounds, etc. without many times knowing who they are, with whom they are affiliated, their CT track record, and so on. The ability of local enterprises to reverse engineer and get moving extremely quickly on the regulatory side can be amazing. Unfortunately when you deal with APIs and compounds that do not have patent protection, this can all be quite scary.

    And this is in addition to all the other problems . . .

  3. pharmed
    Saturday, November 17, 2007 • 1:37 am

    Notwithstanding any result all trials are on human and that is why more than 99.99% reports of clinical trials are as authentic as anywhere in the world.American genes are no genes imported from space.They are from the earth.Only cost and profits are the major factors for trials in china.Let any other country offer cheaper rates for clinical trial ,all industry will move to that country.China is the latest
    discovery in terms of economy.All other things are also outsourced .It is a law of international trade.
    No
    pharma co does anything for charity