For new drug development, in November 2009, Pfizer (China) Research and Development Co. (Wuhan, China) and Wuhan National Bioindustry Base Construction and Management Office signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a Pfizer R&D center in China. The new center, to be located in Biolake, expands the company's position in China, which includes an existing Pfizer R&D center in Shanghai. Pfizer's R&D operations in Wuhan will support clinical drug development (Phase I–IV). Once the facility is built, Pfizer expects to staff the facility with 300 employees within three years and plans to collaborate with local research institutes and universities.

Following its $41-billion acquisition of Schering-Plough (Kenilworth, NJ) in 2009, Merck & Co. (Whitehouse Station, NJ) formed a new emerging markets group as part of its newly formed global human health organization. The group is focusing on growth opportunities in China, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East/Africa/Eastern Europe, including Russia and Turkey.

Presenting GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK, London) 2009 performance on Feb. 4, 2010, GSK CEO Andrew Witty reported that the company's sales in human pharmaceuticals and consumer healthcare products in emerging market grew 16% and represented 21% of the group's turnover, which was £28.4 billion ($44.2) billion in 2009.

In December 2009, GSK extended its strategic relationship and acquired a 19% stake in the South African pharmaceutical company Aspen PharmaCare. GSK initially formed a collaboration in 2008 with Aspen and its joint venture partner, Strides Arcolab, on a licensing and supply basis for a portfolio of branded pharmaceutical products in emerging markets.

AstraZeneca (London) reported in February 2010 that its sales in emerging markets represented 13% of its 2009 healthcare revenues of $32.8 billion and emphasized that growth in these markets is a strategic priority. The company offered data from IMS Health that ranked the company third among the large pharmaceutical companies in growth in Asia-Pacific at 12.0%, first in Latin America at 18.8%, and third in Central and Eastern Europe/Middle East, and Africa (CEE/MEA) at 9.7%. The growth applies from the first quarter 2009 to year-to-date at the time of the presentation (early February 2010). AstraZeneca outperformed overall pharmaceutical growth in Latin America for this period, which was 11.3%, and was only slighly below growth rates in Asia Pacific, which grew at 13.2%, and in CEE/MEA, which increased at 10.2%

Christopher Viehbacher, CEO of sanofi-aventis (Paris) said in February 2010 that the company's net sales in emering markets rose by 19.0% to EUR 7.36 billion ($10.0 billion), accounting for 25.1% of the company's consolidated net sales in 2009. Net sales in China grew by 28.8% to EUR 512 million ($697 million), and sales in Russia increased nearly 60% to EUR 508 million ($692 million).

Novartis (Basel, Switzerland) announced in November 2009 that it will invest $1 billion to increase the company's R&D activities in China, which includes a significant expansion of the Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research (CNIBR) in Shanghai, which focuses on basic R&D of new drugs in China. With the investment, CNIBR will become Novartis's third largest R&D center after the company's R&D facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Basel. Novartis plans to increase the number of R&D associate positions at CNIBR from a current level of 160 to roughly 1000. Novartis is also investing $250 million for a new global technical center in Changsu, Jiangsu Province, China, which will focus on technical R&D and manufacturing-related activities for APIs.

The suppliers

In addition to partnering with domestic suppliers, established Western contract manufacturers are expanding in emerging markets. A case in point is Lonza (Basel), the large contract manufacturer of small-molecules and biological APIs. The company started up new facilities for custom manufacturing for chemical APIs in Nansha, Yunnan Province, China, in 2009. The company also started laboratory-scale peptide production in Nansha, with additional capacities under evaluation.

Reference

1. P. Van Arnum, Pharm. Technol. 34 (1), 46–49 (2010).