Category Pharma, Biotech & Healthcare

Pharmaceuticals: Drug development with Chinese characteristics

Around the world over the past couple of years, the pharmaceuticals industry has been slashing jobs at a rapid rate, beset by expiring patents on important drugs and slowing growth in rich country markets.

The lost jobs have included sales representatives and back office staff, but also the once ring-fenced jobs in drug development, the lifeblood of the industry.

Against this somewhat grim backdrop, however, Shanghai has managed to cement its position as one of the drugs industry’s most important hubs for research and development.

Many of the industry’s premier companies, including Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and AstraZeneca have opened new research facilities in the city and some of them are already looking to expand them.

Novartis, the Swiss group, said in November it planned to invest $1bn in its Shanghai laboratories, which would employ 1,000 people in five years’ time. Shanghai would become the third pillar in the company’s global R&D, alongside Basel and Boston.

Amid hype about corporate research moving to China and overinflated figures about how much real innovation is taking place in the country, the rapid emergence of pharmaceuticals research in Shanghai is a strong demonstration that the city can actually build a genuine corporate research base.

How has it managed to flourish while the industry as a whole is struggling?

The principal draws are the market and the pool of talented scientists.

While OECD healthcare markets are languishing and the industry is trying to come to terms with the impact of US healthcare reform, emerging markets are flourishing, none more so than China.

IMS, the consultancy, believes the country will see sales increase by 17 per cent this year.

Most companies are working on the assumption that China will be one of the three biggest markets in the industry in five years, alongside the US and Japan.

Although industry executives say there is no direct link between where research is conducted and sales in that country, there are plenty of subtle advantages to having labs in important markets – from currying favour with regulators to establishing links with the doctors and scientists who are leaders in their area.

AstraZeneca says that its research arm in Shanghai is mostly focused on trying to learn more about patients in China and the country’s medical needs.

When the company launched its Iressa drug for lung cancer seven years ago, it quickly found that Asian women who were non-smokers responded much more strongly than western patients. One of the genes that the drug targets appears to mutate much more frequently among Asian women, making the treatment more effective.

The initial focus of the facility has been to try to understand more about these differences, first in cancer and now in respiratory diseases.

“The Iressa case will not be an exception. It will happen again and again, so we are here to study the differences between patients in this part of the world,” says Zhang Xiaolin, head of AstraZeneca’s Shanghai research facility.

“All of this will have a profound effect on drug development and on the prospects for personalised medicine.”

The other driving force for drugs companies is the relatively untapped ranks of smart young Chinese scientists.

Novartis says this was the main reason for its decision significantly to expand its research arm in Shanghai. Six years ago, it moved the headquarters of its research operations from Basel to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Daniel Vasella, chairman, says the experience in the US “taught us that you have to go where the talent is rather than getting the talent to come to you”.

The gap in the local talent pool is that, while there are plenty of excellent scientists, there are few people with extensive experience in drug development – an area that is still in its infancy in China.

That means that multinationals have needed to recruit a significant number of overseas Chinese from labs in the US and Europe to take leadership positions – something that nullifies much of the cost advantage there might be to conducting research in China.

At a time when the industry struggling elsewhere, there is no shortage of overseas Chinese scientists wanting to come back.

At first, it was quite hard work to lure back talented researchers, says Mr Zhang at AstraZeneca, but now there are no problems.

Because of the large number of drug research facilities established in Shanghai, there is also now a critical mass of suppliers of the instruments and chemicals that are vital for research.

There are some obstacles, however. Drug companies experience considerable problems shipping biological samples while the regulatory environment for early-stage clinical trials is also extremely complicated.

Charles River to buy WuXi Pharma for $1.6b

The purchase of China’s WuXi PharmaTech Inc. will give Charles River Laboratories International Inc. the ability to offer drug makers one-stop shopping for preclinical drug development and testing, executives of both companies said yesterday.

Charles River Labs, a drug testing contractor based in Wilmington, agreed to acquire Shanghai’s WuXi (pronounced who-shee) in a cash and stock deal valued at about $1.6 billion.

The alliance is a good fit because the two companies serve a similar client base of leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the United States and Europe but provide different services, said James C. Foster, chief executive of Charles River, who will lead the combined company.

While the Massachusetts company conducts animal tests for drug developers before clinical trials, its new Chinese partner, among other things, manufactures the primary ingredient in drugs — known in the industry as the API, or active pharmaceutical ingredient, the substance in drugs that is biologically active.

“We’re doing this because our clients, particularly large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, want to buy an increasing number of services from a smaller number of providers,’’ Foster said in an interview. “We want to be one of those providers.’’

Edward Hu, the WuXi chief operating officer who oversees US operations, said the deal will allow his company to expand faster, and serve a broader customer base, than it could have on its own.

“It creates a formidable company in the early development space,’’ Hu said in an interview, citing the ability to handle a range of services for clients, from designing molecules to safety and animal testing. “No other service provider has this capability today. This is going to reshape the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.’’

But investors apparently thought WuXi stockowners got the better part of the deal, which the boards of both companies have approved. Shares of Charles River tumbled $6.22 (15.6 percent) to $33.55 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, while WuXi shares vaulted $2.84 to $19.41, a 17.1 percent gain.

Charles River agreed to pay $21.25 a share for the Chinese company. That includes $11.25 in cash and $10 in Charles River common stock. The deal represents a more than 25 percent premium over WuXi’s closing stock price Friday. It is expected to be completed some time before the fourth quarter.

The merger reflects a consolidation trend among both drug makers and the companies that provide services to them.

Increasingly, many drug makers have been outsourcing development and testing services to contract research organizations, such as Charles River and WuXi, and focusing their own efforts on clinical trials and marketing. The outsourcing business, which allows drug makers to cut costs and increase their speed to market, has been growing by an estimated 30 percent annually.

“This is another way of reducing risk,’’ said Harry Glorikian, managing partner at Scientia Advisors, a Cambridge consulting firm that focuses on life sciences. “It’s less risky for large pharmas to outsource their drug development functions and become marketing shops pushing these drugs onto consumers. When you think about it, this is similar to Procter & Gamble or Dell outsourcing component design.’’

Under their definitive agreement, the combined company will retain the name Charles River Labs and its global headquarters in Wilmington. The Chinese operation will continue to be called WuXi and be run by its existing management team of mostly Chinese-born, US-educated executives.

WuXi was one of the companies visited by Governor Deval Patrick on a trade mission he led to China in 2007. The company currently serves about 20 customers from Massachusetts, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge.

While the deal helps to cement the role of China as low-cost venue for drug development, Charles River’s Foster said he expects operations in Wilmington will expand as the company grows. Charles River also plans to reopen in 2012 an animal testing site in Shrewsbury where it suspended operations early this year because of a slowdown in business from its customers in the Boston area, Foster said.

“Our footprint will get larger in Massachusetts,’’ he said.

Charles River, which had $1.2 billion in sales last year, employs about 8,000 workers worldwide, including more than 800 in Massachusetts. The company was founded by Foster’s father, veterinarian Henry Foster, in 1947. It went public on the Nasdaq exchange in 1968, and was purchased by medical technology company Bausch & Lomb in 1984.

A management group, led by James Foster, repurchased the company in 1999 through a leveraged buyout and took it public again in 2000, this time on the New York Stock Exchange.

WuXi, a 10-year-old company that posted revenue of $270 million last year, is the largest Chinese maker of chemical compounds for the pharmaceutical industry. It acquired three US research sites in 2008 when it bought Minnesota-based AppTec Laboratory Services Inc. WuXi employs about 4,000 workers worldwide.

Glaxo to cut 3,000 jobs as focus shifts to emerging markets

GlaxoSmithKline is poised to announce cuts of more than 3,000 jobs this week at its European and US operations as the focus shifts from stagnant Western markets to China, emerging Asia, and Latin America.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 6:51PM GMT 31 Jan 2010

The retrenchment follows last week’s move by AstraZeneca to slash 8,000 jobs in a five-year restructuring plan, on top of 12,600 cuts already made. The lay-offs at the UK’s two largest drugs groups are a blow to one of the last surviving fortresses of British industry, responsible for a quarter of the world’s top 100 medicines.

The cuts are a sign that the old strategy of relying on patents and selling “white pills to Western markets” has passed its time as generic drugs sweep global markets.

Glaxo aims to reduce £1.7bn in annual costs by the end of next year and re-focus efforts on research and development. The company has seen lower demand than expected for its Pandremix vaccine against H1N1 swine flu as the virus proved less deadly and contagious than feared at first, though it may yet come back to bite in a mutated form, as the similar Spanish flu virus did in 1919.
The vaccine has lifted sales by around £835m over the last three months but it has not proved a bonanza.

Sales of Glaxo’s H1N1 drug Relenza have also fallen short as swine flu fears subside. Germany alone cut its order of Relenza by 30pc earlier this month, costing the company almost £120m in lost sales. France plans to cancel half its expected orders. Britain, Holland, Spain, and Belgium have all been in talks over reductions. In the end, many patients who did come down with the disease needed just one pill instead of two.

Analysts say the group is likely to announce a return to profit growth of around 12pc to £8.69bn at its full-year results on Thursday after an 11pc slip the year before.

The company has been hit by generic versions of its herpes treatment Valtrext after the recent expiry of its US patent, although it has the lupus drug Benlysta wating in the wings. Valtrex sales are expected to drop by two thirds this year to $782m, raising concerns that the group is too reliant on aging patents.

Andrew Witty, the chief executive, is trying to diversify away from its core pharmaceutical business in the West to consumer health, especially in China.

Tougher rules have made it harder to make money in Europe and America. The EU has passed swingeing codes that have pushed key research activities abroad.

The share of the world’s clinical trials conducted in the UK fell from 6pc to 2pc between 2000 and 2006, largely due to intrusive regulations that have sharply raised costs.

Pfizer’s Looking for More Sales Reps. In China.

By Jacob Goldstein

Same song, different verse: A big drug maker is cutting jobs in the developed world and growing in China.

This time, it’s Pfizer, which said today that it’s looking to increase its sales force in China to 3,200 by the end of next year, up from about 2,300, Dow Jones Newswires reported today. The company has said it will cut nearly 20,000 jobs as part of the Wyeth merger.

Eli Lilly said last fall that it would continue to hire in China, even as it cuts jobs in the U.S. and other developed markets. Novartis is also making a big push into China, hiring hundreds of workers and spending $1 billion to expand a research center in Shanghai.

With business tough in developed markets, drug makers are counting on the developing world for growth. But that’s not always a sure thing, either; just today, the WSJ reported that the Philippine government is asking drug makers to submit a list of proposed price cuts on their “top-selling and most expensive drugs.”

Last summer, the government in Manila put price controls on several drugs, including Pfizer’s Norvasc and Lipitor. Pfizer had previously offered to cut the prices on some of its drugs there, and said last year it was “disappointed” that the government didn’t accept its offer.

Venture capitalists funding more bio-pharmaceutical projects

Spurred by the healthcare reform launched by the central government, healthcare has now become the hot destination for domestic and foreign venture capital (VC).

The buzz has been the most active in the bio-pharmaceutical sector which has raised funds to the tune of nearly $130 million in the first half of the year.

The sector accounted for 20 percent of the investment deals signed in China during the same period, according to a report by Zero2IPO, a leading domestic service provider for the venture capital and private equity industry.

“The ratio is pretty high. The passion (for bio-pharmaceuticals) has been ignited by the predictable growth potential in China’s healthcare industry and the growing demand for biopharmaceuticals,” said Zheng Yufen, senior manager for healthcare at the investment banking division of Zero2IPO.

“Talks are also on for a slew of other investment deals in the bio-pharmaceutical sector and hopefully they would be sewn up by the end of the year,” she said.

“The bio-pharmaceutical segment often sees mega deals and would continue to catch the fancy of venture capitalists for some time to come.”

In January, Kerry Bio-Science, a Zhejiang-based life science research pharmaceutical company, raised its second round of funding worth $13 million from KPCB China and some institutional investors. Kerry Bio-Science will use the funds to set up a new development and research center and expand its output capacity.

The Kerry Bio-Science deal sparked a flurry of investment in the bio-pharmaceuticals sector. Macrostat, a clinical research data provider on bio-pharmaceuticals, got investment, with no details available, from Tigermed Consulting and Qiming Venture Partners. In May, KPCB China made its second investment this year, in Nanjing-based Genscript Corporation, a leading bio-pharmaceutical research outsourcing company, at a price of $15 million, the largest this year.

According to Xiao Jun, executive vice-president of Genscript, the company got funding due to its “inherent strength in biotechnology research and its comprehensive service system”.

“GenScript needs capital and mature management experience to help fulfill the goal of becoming a leading contract research outsourcing company,” Xiao said.

Bio-pharmaceutical companies are those producing drugs using bio-technology. In early 2000, investors began to show interest in the sector, but the investment was not sizable given the limited scope of the medical market then.

“After China unveiled its healthcare reform, a huge potential for these products was unleashed,” said Zheng.

Over the next few years, China’s bio-pharmaceutical sector will continue to grow by 12 to 15 percent annually, and by 2010, the market will reach $100 billion.

With its strong talent pool, China is in a much better position to attract investment by international medical companies for R&D centers. In November, drug major Merck Serono and IBSA, a Switzerland-based bio-pharmaceutical company, announced plans to set up R&D centers in China.

Maurizio Dattilo, director of Strategic Marketing of IBSA, said: “China has a very strong scientific research team and employees to work for the R&D center.”

This year, venture capital firms like International Data Group and SAIF are bolstering their teams and hiring more employees from hospitals and domestic bio-pharmaceutical companies.

“Both the companies are in negotiations for deals of over $10 million,” said Zheng.

AstraZeneca to move production of raw materials for drugs to China

AstraZeneca plans to move all production of the vital molecules in its medicines offshore, mainly to China.

The pharmaceuticals company’s cost-cutting drive, which will continue for some years, means that it will cease to produce or source active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in the UK.

The manufacturing shift to Asia could lead to job losses and either plant closures or a sale to another company, but an Astra spokesman said no decisions had yet been made. “Over the next several years we would seek to outsource all of our active ingredients,” he said.

In the UK, Astra makes APIs for cholesterol and schizophrenia drugs in a factory at Avlon, near Bristol, which employs 300 people. An option for that facility could be a sale to a third party but no decision has been taken, the Astra spokesman said.

Astra has ended the production of active ingredients at its main UK factory in Macclesfield and has been building up its manufacturing presence in China with a big factory in Wuxi, which in addition to making APIs, also does medicine formulation and packaging.

The decision by Astra to shift offshore the entire process of making active ingredients will ring alarm bells in Britain’s chemical sector, which has suffered huge losses in the recent downturn.

According to figures compiled by the Chemical Industries Association, Britain’s trade in pharmaecutical ingredients moved into positive balance over the past year after a decade of deficits. Anecdotal evidence suggested some UK-based chemical companies were getting contracts from drug companies that had experienced quality-control problems in India and China.

The outsourcing of the active molecule in a medicine is an important trend among drug companies and is increasing, said James Knight, chemicals analyst at Collins Stewart, the broker. “There is a move to outsource more and more of the basic ingredients from Asia,” he said.

The threat to makers of pharmaceutical ingredients comes at a time when the UK chemical industry is reeling from a sudden fall in demand from manufacturers. A big chemical site, originally developed by ICI in the northeast of England, has come under threat after a decision by Dow Chemical, the American company, to cease production at its ethylene oxide plant. The integrated nature of the site means that the decision has put neighbouring plants, both suppliers and buyers, under pressure.

Robert Tyler, president of the Chemical Industries Association, said the pressure could become too great for some companies. “If the final decision on ethylene oxide is negative, then there will be more job losses. We have put a plaster on it for a year. A lot of companies will say we are returning to demand levels in 2005 and they will restructure.”

AstraZeneca last month reported that pre-tax profits for the third quarter rose 27 per cent to $3.4 billion (£2 billion), as revenue rose by 5 per cent to $8.2 billion.

Pharma’s Hiring! (In China)

By James A. White

The global drug industry’s long push into China continued today, as Novartis said it plans to spend $1 billion to expand its R&D center in Shanghai. Dow Jones has the details.

CEO Daniel Vasella said the company’s Shanghai work force will grow from 160 to about 1,000, putting it on par with Novartis’s research center in Cambridge, Mass. Novartis’s Basel research center will remain the largest for the Swiss company, which spent $7.2 billion on R&D last year.

“I think it will be a signal of China’s rising importance in the pharmaceutical industry,” Vasella told Dow Jones during a visit to Beijing, where the investment was announced. “You have to ask yourself where do you need to be down the road, and clearly it is here.”

Drug manufacturing has been shifting to China for a long time. More recently, U.S. and European companies have begun expanding their R&D operations there as well, as we noted last year when Genzyme said it planned to spend $90 million on an R&D shop in Beijing.

And as Eli Lilly reminded us recently, companies continue to hire in China and other emerging markets, even as they cut positions in the U.S. and other established markets.

China Update: Novartis said today it plans to buy 85% of a closely held Chinese vaccine maker for $125 million if Chinese authorities approve the deal. Dow Jones Newswires notes in its story that China is the world’s third-largest vaccine market.

Strategies for Success in China Life Sciences

Daniel Marshak, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer and President, Greater China, PerkinElmer, Inc.
Drug Discovery & Development – June 09, 2009

China continues to emerge as a life sciences market with significant opportunity, despite the global economic downturn. For example, although pharmaceutical giant Novartis is decreasing its US investment, it is increasing its investment in China. Many other biopharmaceutical companies are following suit, and the life sciences tools community is close behind.

As China emerges as a primary market for advanced laboratory and research technologies in instruments, consumables, and services, several responsible factors in particular stand out. Above all, there is a growing realization within the industry that science in China, both in pharmaceuticals and in basic research, is quite sophisticated and has been for some time. This has resulted in Chinese demand for the same level of technology and support services as is present in the US and Europe, and will no doubt continue to grow as China emerges as a life sciences power in the coming years.

To meet this demand, tool providers have increased their investment in delivering advanced lab technologies and services despite the economic uncertainty. Companies that take the short-term view and downsize their Chinese operations are taking a serious risk. Only those who make the investments needed to initiate and maintain strong commitments to their customers, and to back them with highly trained and motivated staff, have a chance of winning.

One straightforward strategy for succeeding in this market is often the most undervalued or overlooked: increasing service capabilities, implementing resources and processes for lowering service response time, minimizing customer downtime, and maximizing first-time repair metrics. Research organizations in China are highly productivity-minded, and they will reward top-tier, highly responsive service following their investment. This is particularly true for laboratory automation workstations and detection systems for screening their growing compound libraries.

To ensure all this requires a strong local presence of experts, which means maintaining jobs, salaries, benefits, and bonuses, all investments worth making in the Chinese workforce. Initial installations will grow as our clients’ capabilities increase alongside China’s presence in the global market. Further investments must be made in language localization in every possible facet of a China operation. Stocking service parts and consumables locally, in addition to local expertise, are fundamental requirements for successful customer relationships in the region. Excellent local language at all levels of customer contact is an absolute necessity, going beyond the basics of user manuals into high-level, detailed scientific applications notes and even advanced software. For example, PerkinElmer has recently expanded its application labs in China, and also created a dedicated global development center for information technology that serves the region, as well as installed new software development initiatives based in China. To excel in these areas is a basic requirement of doing business in China today.

A guiding principle for life science tool makers in China is to ensure that their product portfolio matches the particular technology demands of local customers. For example, both local and global pharmaceutical companies in China place a high degree of emphasis on high-throughput screening (HTS) and high-content screening (HCS) in their research operations, as well as on biochemical assays that complement cellular assays and cellular image-based assays. In fact, most global pharmaceutical companies are moving much of their labor-intensive screening activities, and some assay-based development, to China. However, the latter trend of shifting labor-intensive research activities to Asia should not overshadow the increasing demand for sophisticated lab solutions for cutting-edge research. The ability to provide complete instrument, reagent consumables, software, services, and training capabilities to customers will be a key differentiator in the China market for years to come.

A key pitfall for vendors in the region is a lack of preparedness for advanced customer interactions in the introduction of new technologies. The importance of providing significant customer training opportunities, particularly in the use of cutting-edge techniques possible through their tools with regard to their specific applications, cannot be overstated. Furthermore, it is critical not only to invest in supporting current product portfolios, but also to keep customers in China abreast of new science being performed globally, as well as emerging technologies in the pipeline in the near future. Successful partners will not hesitate to dedicate their best staff and commit significant resources to maintaining a high degree of customer interactions, featuring frequent visits to various research and development and manufacturing sites in the region, continual technology demonstrations, and in-depth training and symposia, all of which are essential to keeping customers informed of the potential of their product investment in advancing their research and business goals.

Another important avenue for success in China is to have strong working relations with the central government as a partner, in both human health and environmental health. Government priorities in life sciences research, especially in testing technologies for food, water, air, and consumer products, have guided many regional advances in health and safety, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The common goal of the central government and the life sciences industry is unltimately to provide a healthier life to people and the environment in China.

Trends in the Chinese life sciences’ market clearly indicate not only growing innovation with global applicability, but also an increase in the scale and the depth of demand for new technologies and applications. Tool companies must acknowledge China’s sophistication and locally-originated–as well as globally-imported–advanced research requirements. Those who seek to serve these needs accordingly, and above all, make the necessary investments to do so, will meet with success. This demand can only be met by global players who make the necessary commitments to localization, in the form of smart investments in people and resources.

Biotech company Commonwealth Biotechnologies (CBI) expands in China

Chesterfield-based Commonwealth Biotechnologies (CBI) is planning to expand its presence in China by acquiring all outstanding shares of GL Biochem in Shanghai.

The companies have reached a purchase agreement for an undetermined price.
CBI itself does not develop drugs, but it out-sources research and laboratory support for companies that do.

According to CBI’s due diligence report, the Chinese biotech company had revenue of $13 million and an after-tax profit of $2 million in 2008.
The deal is pending regulatory and shareholder approval. CBI is publicly traded on NASDAQ and closed today at $0.56 a share, up 44 percent on the day.

“When you are merging a non-U.S. company into a U.S. NASDAQ-listed company, there are some challenges to reconcile,” said Richard Freer, co-founder and chief operating officer of CBI.

Freer said the company hopes to close on the deal within 90 days.

GL Biochem is a market leader for an area of biopharmaceuticals known as custom peptide synthesis, Freer said.

“We then become, by extension, a major player in the peptide pharmaceutical discovery business,” he said.

The product is primarily used in the development of vaccines.

This is not CBI’s first foray into China. Last year, the company entered a $1 million deal with Beijing-based Venturepharm Laboratories. Under that agreement, CBI sold 463,426 shares at $2.15 a piece in exchange for $500,000 cash and $500,000 worth of Venturepharm stock.

Freer said China is not only a good location for low-cost research centers, but also – with a population of 1.3 billion – a future growth market for vaccines.

Tigermed, MacroStat forge Chinese CRO alliance

Win-win Cooperation Between China Leading CROs, Boosting Full Service Capability

HANGZHOU, China, March 3 /PRNewswire-Asia/ —

Tigermed Consulting Co., Ltd, a leading Contract Research Organization (CRO) in China, and Qiming Venture, a premier venture capital firm based in Shanghai join hands to grant asset injection to MacroStat, the unique CRO in China specialized in clinical data management and statistical analysis. The union between the two top CROs will significantly improve Tigermed’s clinical data management serviceability and broaden MacroStat’s business line.

”MacroStat has the leading talents and system in biostatistics, with absolute competitive advantage in China. Tigermed and MacroStat shall establish extensive strategic partnership in the management of clinical trials, data management and statistical analysis. Tigermed accumulated outstanding expertise in clinical trials, while MacroStat is an expert in biostatistics. Our cooperation shall expand Tigermed’s business line and add professionalism to Tigermed’s biostatistics services. The win-win cooperation between leading CROs with complementary advantages is conducive to constructing a higher level of CRO service chain and further updating full service capability, which also opens a fast track to the globalization of China CROs,” comments Dr. Ye Xiaoping, CEO and founder of Tigermed.

Ms. Cao Xiaochun, Vice President of Tigermed, added, ”Tigermed pays close attention to MacroStat advantage in data management and statistical analysis. Besides Ms. Cao Xiaochun, Dr. Ye Xiaoping (CEO and founder of Tigermed) and Hu Xubo (Director of Healthcare Investment Sector of Qiming Venture) will also join in MacroStat’s board of directors. The cooperation between Tigermed and MacroStat will not only satisfy global clients with international standards but also power the innovative drug development in China, making it possible to streamline clinical research cycle and considerably reduce drug R & D costs.”

”MacroStat has set up strategic partnerships with many multinational pharmaceutical and biotech companies and international CROs, and has become their preferential biostatistics vendor. MacroStat’s customers are mainly from USA and Europe. With the new capital, MacroStat will further accelerate its development effectively, on one hand, keeping the unique advantage in biostatistics, one the other hand, extending business line into clinical trials, so as to provide more extensive and comprehensive services for the pharmaceutical industries.” Comments Helen Yin, managing director of MacroStat China.

About MacroStat

MacroStat, an international CRO, founded in 2002 in USA, is one of the few professional CROs dedicated to providing clinical data management and statistical analysis services. MacroStat is specialized in providing data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) support for USA FDA, and statistical support to FDA, CVM, EPA, MAA, MCA and other agencies and Asian countries. MacroStat (China) was established in 2005 in Shanghai, and now becomes the unique CRO focused on biostatistics in China

About Tigermed

Tigermed Consulting Co., Ltd, a leading Contract Research Organization (CRO) in China, is expected to become the largest CRO in China within 3 years. With capital injection from Qiming Venture in 2008, Tigermed has entered into a period of rapid expansion. The combined asset injection to MacroStat marks a stride forward in Tigermed’s internationalization strategic development. The extensive cooperation between Tigermed and MacroStat allows both to make a big step forward.