China to accelerate availability of first-class drugs in Japanese partnership

China has been involved in 100 percent of the late-stage global trials by Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda and approximately half of its early-stage ones, said a senior research and development executive of the company during an event in Shanghai on Tuesday.

Such efforts will accelerate the availability of global first-class drugs to benefit Chinese patients, said Andy Plump, president of Takeda R&D, during the 2024 Takeda R&D China Innovation Forum.

"Through ongoing investments and new partnerships, we remain committed to advancing China's important participation in our global clinical trials, which we believe is critical to delivering better health to patients globally," said Plump.

"Currently, we have six drugs in late-stage clinical trials worldwide and have obtained approvals for 14 innovative drugs in China since 2018. Also, we've been actively exploring partnerships, aiming to deliver innovative drugs and transformative treatments to patients," he said.

Themed "Connecting Innovation for a Collaborative Ecosystem," the event in Shanghai gathered stakeholders from industry, academia, research, and investment to share hotspots of global R&D and trends in Chinese pharmaceutical innovation, intending to explore cooperation opportunities, enhance local R&D capabilities, and facilitate the realization of global value through Chinese innovation.

Chris Arendt, chief scientific officer and head of research at Takeda, said that in addition to China's impressive vibrancy and potential in the pharmaceutical innovation landscape, the company also hoped to harness the country's speed to support global R&D efforts, working together to explore scientific frontiers and expedite global drug innovation.

Separately, on Saturday, Takeda China supported a conference focusing on the innovative development of digestive health held by the China Medical Education Association in Nanjing. Leading experts and scholars from home and abroad gathered to discuss the future direction of the high-quality development of the field.

Breaking the boundaries among government, industry, academia, and research, participants went deep into discussions about health literacy improvement for the public, the construction of the digestive department at hospitals, and homogeneous development in medical treatment.

Experts said that regarding disease prevention and control, there is still a big gap between the awareness and actions of the public.

"For example, many individuals may have known that a certain proportion of stomach cancer is related to the infection of Helicobacter pylori, a stomach bacterium, but the treatment rate of it remains low," said Chen Minhu, a leading expert at the digestive system department of The First Hospital Affiliated with Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province.