July 27, 2006

Pfizer confident of China's growth to top spot

American pharmaceutical company Pfizer is confident of China's burgeoning potential in the global market for medicines, including animal health products.

CEO Dr Ma Jinlong pointed out that China will be among the five biggest pharmaceutical markets by 2010, and possibly the largest in fifty years. Rapid economic development has raised the commitment to lift standards in pharmaceutical research and attracted the return home of Chinese researchers and experts educated abroad. These have strengthened the fundamentals for pharmaceuticals R&D in China.

Meanwhile, foreign pharmaceutical firms are rushing in to tap on China's sterling growth. Earlier last year, Pfizer built an R&D center in Shanghai. Some of Europe's biggest like the Sanofi-Aventis Group, Swiss-based Roche and the UK's GlaxoSmithKline have plans to build similar research facilities in China, including that for animal science and health.

Pfizer revealed that its Shanghai R&D Centre will, in the longer term, play a crucial role in the company's global business expansion plan, from servicing its markets in China and Asia, to the rest of the world.