Novartis Invests in China

Novartis will set up a new drug discovery research facility at the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai. Employing as many as 400 scientists, it will be among the largest foreign-owned drug discovery centers in China.

The company plans to spend $100 million to establish the facility. This money will cover the cost of setting up a temporary R&D center that will begin operating in May 2007 as well as the construction of a more permanent facility with 38,000 m² of floor space. Work on the latter will begin in July. The firm expects to find most of its scientific staff in the Shanghai area.

Novartis says the main focus of research will be infections that lead to cancer. About 400 million Chinese people carry the hepatitis B virus, which kills about 300,000 of them annually, often because the disease degenerates into liver cancer. Among its activities, the R&D center will manage early clinical trials and collaborate with local research centers. The center will be headed by En Li, a Shanghai native who currently runs the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

The number of foreign-funded companies conducting drug discovery and development research in China is small but rising. For example, Roche operates a 5,000-m² facility in Zhangjiang that is integrated with other Roche R&D centers worldwide. Shanghai-based Hutchison MediPharma, a unit of Hong Kong???s Hutchison Whampoa, is currently conducting clinical trials in the U.S. for several drugs developed in its Shanghai labs. These foreign-funded facilities are managed by Chinese scientists who have worked in the U.S. and Europe (C&EN, Aug. 21, page 15).