For several decades, China's central government has been encouraging basic research (Nat. Biotechnol. 26, 37–53, 2008) and patenting efforts, organizing the intellectual property (IP) into tangible assets for technology transfer. But increasingly delegations from China have been looking to the West, and the US in particular, to tap into investors' expertise in the biotech business and study a comparatively vibrant private sector that participates in many of the downstream steps of drug development. According to Janet Carmosky, president of the New York-based consultancy China Prospects, in China, “quite a lot of that chain from bench to bedside is supported by government.” She says the Chinese are looking to build their knowledge of drug development, and these efforts are now picking up speed.
It's not unusual for non-healthcare-oriented industries in China to venture into the pharma-biotech space. A beverage company was the original investor in WuXi PharmaTech, in Shanghai, now China's largest contract research organization and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Recently, a group from Wenzhou in the province of Zhejiang, known for making shoes and handbags, toured the US looking for biotech opportunities. The textile conglomerate Shanshan, which provided funding, bought the real estate and brought scientists to the Zhong Ke LangFang High Tech Valley to commercialize the IP of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It now wants to do something similar in the US, and representatives have met with several US universities to discuss applied genomics research and renewable energy technology.
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