Global Life Sciences Cluster Report 2011 - Jones Lang LaSalle

1.4%
R&D expenditure
(% of GDP, 2007)
Emerging cluster
China
1,071
Researchers in
R&D (per million
people, 2007)
The People’s Republic of China is quickly emerging as a top destinations for
life sciences investment due to its huge market potential (large population,
improving public health care systems, increasing healthcare expenditure as
a percentage of GDP) and low cost manufacturing sector.
Overview
31.0%
High technology
exports (% overall
exports, 2009)
81 Asia Pacific | Jones Lang LaSalle
4.6%
Total health
expenditure
(% of GDP, 2009)
China’s pharmaceutical industry has enjoyed massive growth
over the past decade. The country’s emergence onto the radar
screen of multi-national life science companies parallels its
growth into one of the world’s dominant economies with a
significant and growing middle class, an increasingly open
and inviting marketplace and waves of foreign investors lined
up to take part.
Certainly, one reason for interest in China was its low-cost
manufacturing capabilities. Historically, Western pharmaceutical
makers enjoyed a 30 to 50 percent cost savings by relocating
the manufacturing of intermediates, APIs, starting materials
and some finished drugs to China. The focus is now on
29
World economic
forum’s innovation
rank (out of 142)
expanding capabilities beyond manufacturing into more hightech
R&D functions. Multinationals are taking bolder steps as
highlighted by AstraZeneca’s recent announcement to invest
$200 million on a new plant in China (its biggest-ever investment
in one production facility) that will turn out injectables and oral
drugs for the domestic market.
With the world’s largest population and second-largest economy
with a growing middle class, China’s prospective consumer
base is unmatched by any country worldwide. Additionally, the
Chinese government is trying to entice foreign and domestic
investment in a local life sciences industry, spending billions on
the advancement of science and technology as outlined early
2011 in the 12th Five-Year Plan.
Tof C