Richard Sullivan, Director at Institute for Cancer Policy and Co-Director at King’s Centre for Conflict and Health Security, shared on LinkedIn:
“To paraphrase Foucault, power is not an institution or a structure; it is the name we give to a complex strategic situation.
And for global pharmaceuticals, this power dynamic is rapidly changing. Seen through the lens of individual medicines or countries, the tactical field is in deep flux. New pharmaceutical pricing deals are stressing countries’ public policy to the limit (see our comment in BMJ).
And cost opportunity is now a real threat. All of this reflects serious changes in the power dynamics of global pharmaceuticals driven by one thing. China.
Anchored against the USA and European markets, our most recent analysis with colleagues at Wuhan and Peking Universities illuminates an exponential rise in China’s entry into mainstream international regulatory systems for medicines.
In the 1990s, China was nowhere to be seen. But in the period 2021-25, the US FDA undertook some 567 abbreviated New Drug Application approvals for China-developed medicines, with a pronounced shift in therapeutic focus toward oncology and immunomodulatory agents. China’s large market and sustained growth in R&D investment have also prompted Western pharmaceutical companies to incorporate China into global synchronised development strategies.
Regulatory approvals of novel oncology drugs between the US FDA and China’s National Medical Products Administration are now on a par, and, like Europe’s EMA, the pipeline is dominated by cancer.
For every action there is a reaction. The entry of China into the global pharmaceutical system as a major power, as well as its potential as a significant market for Western companies, is seriously stress-testing the sector. As power dynamics shift, the behaviour of Western companies to lock in pricing deals becomes a lot clearer. But as in any complex adaptive system, even these changes may be insufficient.
Political backlash against what has been seen as unfair and unsustainable trade deals could rapidly unravel a system that has weathered many threats over the years.”
Other articles featuring Richard Sullivan on OncoDaily.