“Made in China 2025” is the government’s ten year plan released in 2015 to update China’s manufacturing power by rapidly developing ten high-tech industries.

The plan proposed a “three step” strategy of transforming China into a leading manufacturing power by the year 2049, which marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Made in China 2025, pharmaceutical sector

With regard to biopharmaceutical sector, one of the main objectives is the development of 10-20 innovative products able to reach international standards by 2020. Chinese spending on pharmaceutical research and development is growing and has increased from $ 494 million to $ 3,352 million in 2011 to $ 6.647 million in 2015 and was $ 7.178 million in 2016.

Patents

The percentage of the global market held by the Chinese biotech and pharmaceutical patents has tripled to 32% in 2016, while the percentage of patents granted rose from 10% in 2006 to 18% in 2016. In the same period the percentage of US market patents  fell from 32% to 28% and that of US patents granted fell from 32% to 30%.

China is also advancing in the field of innovative cancer treatments, for example 166 of the 400 global CAR-T clinical trials are conducted in China.
“Quantity does not necessarily mean quality and the rapid growth of many players indicates that the industry is still growing and the ecosystem has yet to stabilize,” said Marietta Wu of Quan Capital, a Chinese Venture Capital company.