Interview: Vice president says China of key strategic importance for AstraZeneca

World pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has made expanding its presence in the Asia-Pacific region its business priority, with a focus on China which, as the company's Vice President for Global Development John Ramsey puts, is of key strategic importance.

AstraZeneca, which has had a presence in China since 1993, is investing 100 million U.S. dollars in R&D in China over 2-3 years focusing on important diseases in the country, through its Innovation Center China (ICC) which opened in 2007, Ramsey told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

The senior AstraZeneca official said that he likes very much the saying by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in January 2006 that innovation is the soul of scientific and technological development and the motive power behind national development.

"The ICC is the biggest investment from a major multinational pharmaceutical company so far with an emphasis on innovation and focusing on diseases important for Chinese patients," Ramsey said.

"The initial focus of the ICC will be cancer and developing knowledge about cancers such as liver cancer, gastric cancer, lung cancer and pre-menopausal breast cancer, (which are) important in China and South East Asia. The scientific work will be specializedin translational science to understand the underlying causes of the disease, biomarkers for therapy and potential new targets for drug therapy," Ramsey said.

To a question on how to deliver the benefits and value of innovative medicines for Chinese patients, Ramsey said this will be done through a state-of-the-art laboratory being built in Shanghai and through collaborations with Chinese universities and medical centers.

Through the ICC, AstraZeneca is seeking to collaborate with medical institutes and universities which are centers of excellence, he said, citing as an example a joint research laboratory with Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, with a focus on lung cancer.

There are projects for new and early cancers -- so for example, with a compound which is being tested as a potential treatment for liver cancer, the work being done is to provide some early evaluation of whether this compound works in models of liver cancers and involves collaborations with Chinese universities. If it works, then AstraZeneca may start some clinical trials, Ramsey said.

To a question why his company chose to set up an innovation center in China, Ramsey said, "China has increasing scientific innovations from itself, China has different disease profiles and mechanisms, China has unmet medical needs and China has rapidly expanding market potential."

"China is of key strategic importance to us and we are giving special emphasis to business development in China as the country is a key market now and for the future. AstraZeneca in the prescription medicine market in China is expected to grow to 43 billion U.S. dollars by 2012 from 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2006," he said.

Referring to how AstraZeneca competes with other world pharmaceutical giants in the China market, Ramsey said, "Our approach differs in 'innovation,' that is, we focus on research of medicines to benefit Chinese patients. The ICC scientists work in an integrated manner with other AstraZeneca scientists -- In China, For China."

The ICC is based in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai and so far 40 experts have been recruited, all of whom have a college education. Forty percent of these professionals have Ph.D qualifications and by the end of the year, the center is to recruit 60 scientists.

AstraZeneca China, whose China headquarters is in Shanghai, also has branch offices in more than 20 cities across the mainland with a total workforce of 2,500.

AstraZeneca, with its corporate headquarters in Britain and its research headquarters in Sweden, is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, with a total of 65,000 employees worldwide, of which about 12,000 are dedicated to discovering and developing new medicines.

Source: Xinhua