China is overshadowing America in the pharmaceutical industry too: Chinese pharmaceutical company is testing cancer medicine on American patients.

Annual conference of cancer experts in Chicago. – File photo

China seems to be a rapidly emerging power in the development of new medicines. For decades, drug trials at the annual conference of cancer experts were driven primarily by hospitals in the US and Europe, but last week’s annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago signaled that the global biotechnology landscape is changing.

China’s biotech industry, once considered relatively small, has in a few years become a major center for research, development and clinical testing of new drugs. According to Dr. Otis Brawley, a Johns Hopkins University professor who has been attending ASCO conferences since 1989, China’s biotech industry has now established a strong presence on the global stage. However, this development has also raised concerns among US officials, pharmaceutical companies and medical experts. Their fears are also related to controls on the development of new drugs and the weakening of America’s long-standing lead in the biotech sector.

American biotech startups say they are facing tough competition from Chinese companies in the areas of patents, research publications and clinical trials. Along with this, the question is also arising whether the medicines developed in China will prove to be as effective on American patients as they are on Chinese citizens. In fact, Asian lung cancer patients survive longer and benefit more from treatment than people of other ethnicities. The most discussed topic in the conference was the anti-cancer drug Ivonesimab of the Chinese company Akeso Biopharma. The company is also testing this drug on American patients.

Many big pharmaceutical companies have deals with China

For the last few years, the world’s big pharmaceutical companies have been importing Chinese medicines and raw materials on a large scale. So far this year, almost half of such deals have been made with Chinese companies. This is much more than 2020. In the conference, deals for Ivonesimab and other cancer medicines have been signed by big companies like Pfizer, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb.

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