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Newly approved cancer drugs in China — innovation and clinical benefit

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 20, pages 135–136 (2023)Cite this article

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Around 100 new cancer drugs, defined as new molecular entities, were approved in China between 2005 and 2021. More than half of these new cancer drugs do not constitute innovations in mechanism of action or therapy and do not have documented meaningful clinical benefit. Approaches are needed to promote meaningful innovation for patients with cancer.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank H. Naci and L. Shi for insightful review and comments on this work, and Y. Li for assistance with data processing. X.G. gratefully acknowledges grants from Research on Equitable Access and Rational Use of Medicines sponsored by Peking University Health Science Center. The funding organization had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No other disclosures were reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacy Administration and Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yichen Zhang & Xiaodong Guan

  2. Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Anita K. Wagner

  3. International Research Centre for Medicinal Administration, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xiaodong Guan

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  1. Yichen Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiaodong Guan.

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Zhang, Y., Wagner, A.K. & Guan, X. Newly approved cancer drugs in China — innovation and clinical benefit. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 20, 135–136 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-023-00728-3

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