Finance Association, April 10 (Reporters Wang Junxian and He Fan) From April 9 to 10, the 7th Pharmaceutical Innovation Ecology Conference (2024 Western Party Conference) was held in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. The conference, with the theme of “Reshaping R&D and Clinical Value Transformation Ecology One by One through the Differentiation Period”, attracted more than 3,000 practitioners from the fields of “industry, academia, research, medicine, capital, and business”.

A CFA reporter noticed that the conference focused on promoting solutions to the “two” challenges faced by the pharmaceutical innovation industry, namely how to achieve original innovation with high quality and high value, and how to efficiently commercialize products and achieve clinical value after marketing. Industry experts and executives of listed pharmaceutical companies analyzed the new variables currently facing the industry. Many participants judged that domestic pharmaceutical companies will reduce their internal volume in the future.

Obstetricians gather, and the industry faces two major challenges during the differentiation period

With the theme of “Crossing the differentiation period - reconstructing the ecosystem of R&D and clinical value transformation”, this year's Xipai Conference was guided by the Shanghai Pudong New Area Science and Economics Committee, the Shanghai Pudong Science City Construction Management Office, the Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Association, and co-hosted by Zhongkang Technology, Shanghai Zhangjiang (Group) Co., Ltd., and the Shanghai Pudong Biological Industry Association.

A CFA reporter learned that the conference attracted more than 3,000 ecological practitioners, including supervisory authorities, government and association leaders, more than 100 academicians, Jie Qing, research workers from universities and research institutes, leading clinical experts and doctors, representatives of innovative pharmaceutical companies, representatives of third-party service companies, and investors from domestic and foreign primary and secondary market institutions. It attracted the attention of the industry.

At the opening ceremony, Guo Xiaoyun, founder of Xipai (Pharmaceutical Innovation Ecology Conference) and Zhongkang Technology, and Yuan Tao, Party Secretary and Chairman of Zhangjiang Group, delivered separate speeches.

Yuan Tao said that the biomedical industry is one of the three leading industries in Shanghai where elite forces are concentrated to accelerate development breakthroughs. As an “industrial engine” leading the high-quality development of regional industries, Shanghai Zhangjiang is developing more than 1,300 drug pipelines, gathering more than 1,700 biomedical innovators, and entering 7 of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies. A total of 12 major national science and technology infrastructures have been built, under construction and planning, and nearly 200 professional technical service platforms covering the entire life cycle of the industrial chain.

Guo Xiaoyun pointed out that at present, China's pharmaceutical innovation industry has entered a period of adjustment at the same time as the global market. The innovative drug industry faced two major challenges. One is that the dividends of the entrepreneurial demonstration of overseas scientists have basically been released. How to develop basic research and carry out effective industrial transformation to ensure a continuous source of innovation is the key; the second is how to optimize the market entry environment and support efficient market transformation after innovative drugs enter the commercialization stage. This year's Xipai Conference specially set up a forum for commercialization and internationalization of innovative drugs, as well as a forum for the integration of obstetrics and medicine, to explore commercial transformation and explore high-quality original research projects, and achieve full integration of clinical value and pharmaceutical research and development.

A CIFA reporter learned that for the first time, the 2024 Western Party will gather clinical expert groups and industrial ecological groups on the same stage to cover “industry, science, research, medicine, capital, and commerce”, restructure the connection between industry and doctor groups, build a platform for industry exchange, stimulate the collision of ideas among various actors, and promote the development of the innovative drug industry.

Wu Jinglei, vice chairman of the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology and president of the Shanghai Medical Association, believes that from a clinical perspective, there are still some problems in China's pharmaceutical innovation industry. First, basic research in China ranks second in the world. There are many papers published by the CNS, but there are not many conversions; secondly, certification of the original novel drugs and number of targets also lags behind some developed countries; third, China follows innovation and serious homogenization; in addition, domestic pharmaceutical companies have a relatively large layout in the field of tumor infections and hematology, but there are not enough racetracks for aging, neurogenic diseases, and rare diseases, and these are places that clinicians really want to pay attention to and promote.

To this end, Wu Jinglei proposed that from the perspective of clinicians, enterprises, and investors, we need to pay attention to several issues. First, we need to pay attention to changes in disease spectrum and demand for new tracks; secondly, we need to find valuable partners at the source and focus on products that have been researched based on clinical problems; third, we need to find new tracks in the diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, and marker search for different diseases, using rare diseases as an example. This requires close cooperation with clinical experts to discover new problems.

Under the new variables, will internal volume be reduced in the future?

Many participants believed that in recent years, China's innovative drugs have developed rapidly, and as major international pharmaceutical companies have come to China one after another to purchase innovative drugs, it shows that China's pharmaceutical innovation capabilities have gradually gained international recognition. However, at the same time, China's pharmaceutical industry is also facing some new variables, such as: the financing environment is slightly worse than in previous years, commercialization on the payment side falls short of expectations, and changes in the international situation.

However, there are also opinions that while all these variables bring problems to enterprises, they also bring opportunities, and the future development prospects of the industry can be expected.

“Does differentiation in the selection of innovative drugs represent relatively reasonable prices?” Liu Datao, chairman and CEO of Maiwei Biotech, asked this question at the conference. He said that the current level of R&D in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry is no worse than that of foreign countries, but the biggest difference is the payment side. “If the payment side cannot be reformed, it will be difficult for us to generate the top ten and top 20 pharmaceutical companies in the world.”

Meanwhile, new changes have also taken place at the policy level. In February of this year, the National Health Insurance Administration issued a draft for comments on the “Notice on Establishing a Initial Price Formation Mechanism for Newly Launched Chemicals to Encourage High-Quality Innovation” to encourage pharmaceutical innovation in terms of pricing innovative drugs.

At the same time, the suggestion that the whole chain supports innovative drugs has also attracted much attention. Recently, Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and other places have issued consultation drafts and policies to support the development of innovative drugs.

Wan Jiang, vice president of Betta Pharmaceuticals, expressed the hope that the initial pricing mechanism for innovative drugs will return drugs to their original value. The initial pricing must not be for price reduction, but for better pricing based on value, including future indications. There should be both price reductions and price increases, and future policies should encourage innovation more.

Chen Qiyu, executive director and co-CEO of Fosun International, believes that the new variables in the capital chain and health insurance chain are painful in the short term, but in the long run, in a sense, they are of greater benefit to the industry. It is expected that the industry will reach a higher level in the future, because there was a lot of money in the past, and there were no bottlenecks in health insurance payments. Everyone is very quick to innovate companies and products. Behind the speed, there is more following and repetition. As can be seen now, through these two or three years of suffering, the industry pattern is rapidly changing. I believe that in the future, the degree of repetition of the same target development in China will not be that high, and everyone will be more original.

He Ruyi, chief medical officer of Rongchang Biotech and chief scientist of SDIC Innovative Healthcare, also agreed with the view that domestic pharmaceutical companies will reduce internal involvement in the future. At the same time, he believes that now is a good opportunity for industry mergers and acquisitions. Demand for medical care has increased due to the aging population. I believe that the Chinese pharmaceutical industry has excellent development opportunities in the future.