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AstraZeneca, one of the top five pharmaceutical multinationals worldwide, announced yesterday that it had established its East Asia clinical research center in Shanghai.
The center is the first of its kind set up by an international pharmaceutical company in China.
It is expected to further strengthen the Britain-based company's presence in China, which has become one of the world's fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets, according to Steen Kroyer, president of AstraZeneca China.
By collecting local patients' data through a domestic hospital network, the new research facility makes China a critical component of AstraZeneca's future global clinical trials. It can therefore enable the company's new medicines to enter the Chinese market faster.
The research center will also seek to develop closer relations with Chinese health institutions and organizations.
"It's our strategic choice (to set up the center)," said Don Stribling, vice-president of AstraZeneca's global clinical project management.
According to an earlier forecast report by Boston Consulting Group, China will become the world's fifth-largest pharmaceutical market by 2010 as market revenue will more than triple from its current US$7 billion to US$24 billion.
(China Daily November 27, 2002)
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