Lilly opts for R&D as a game plan for China

UNITED States drug maker Eli Lilly & Co will invest US$100 million in China over the next five years on research and development to boost sales in the world's most populous market.

The money will mainly be used to fund biotechnology, chemical drug and clinical research together with its Chinese partners, rather than setting up its own R&D center, sources told Shanghai Daily yesterday.

The cooperation will follow the model of the Shanghai ChemExplorer Company Ltd, which focuses on life science research. Their partnership began in 2002.

Lilly believes that R&D method works better than establishing its own center, according to the sources.

The company plans to double the number of clinical trials in China this year from last year's level, said Robert Brown, executive director of international marketing of Lilly, in an interview on March 30.

"As China become a bigger part of our global picture, we have to have a better appreciation how our product work on the Chinese," he said in the interview.

Lilly, the world's largest maker of psychiatric drugs that includes impotency treatment Cialis, has invested about US$200 million since it set up a local branch in 1995, mostly on R&D.

"The overseas drug makers have to get a better understanding of Chinese patients if they want to boost sales here," said Gao Huijun, a senior researcher at the Scientific & Technic Information Institute under the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration.

"It's also cheaper to conduct R&D in China, with cheaper talent who are as good as their overseas counterparts in certain areas, and it's easier for them to find volunteers for drug tests."
In March, Britain's second-largest drug maker AstraZeneca announced it had chosen Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Industrial Park as its initial base for its research and development.