China has pulled ahead of the United States in clinical drug development and supply chain, two of six domains measured in a June Cure Innovation Index survey, even as Big Pharma signs billion-dollar deals for Chinese-developed medicines.
Washington Moves — But the Patient Clock Is Ticking
In a statement to Benzinga, Dr. Nathan Goodyear, an integrative medicine physician at Williams Cancer Institute who has spent time in China himself, said the scale of the shift is striking. “A decade ago, almost none of the new cancer drugs in the American pipeline came from China. Today, roughly a third of the new drugs Big Pharma licensed in came from Chinese labs,” Goodyear said.
He said the security concern and the patient cost of restricting the licensing partnerships are both real. “Throttle these partnerships too abruptly and the near-term cost lands on the people with the least time to spare — cancer patients,” Goodyear said. “Fewer candidates in the pipeline, longer timelines, and less price competition on some of the most promising new drugs.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched Operation TrailBlazer in late June. The agency warned in its roadmap of a “critical window, measured in years, not decades, to act decisively or risk ceding military, geopolitical, and economic advantages to China.”
