BEIJING: Chinese drugmakers have demonstrated growing innovative prowess and made progress toward breaking into the foreign market in the past year, according to drug regulators and industry insiders.
The National Medical Products Administration said in a report released earlier this month that 40 Class 1 new drugs were approved in 2023, compared with 21 the previous year. Class 1 new drugs refer to those that have never been marketed in China or abroad.
Fifteen out of the 40 innovative therapies target cancer, and the remaining can be used in treating chronic hepatitis C, gastric acid condition, diabetes, psoriasis and other diseases.
The number of clinical trial applications for innovative drugs reached 2,997 in 2023, up nearly 34 percent year-on-year, and the number of applications for market approval rose to 470, a year-on-year increase of about 41 percent, the administration said.
“China’s pharmaceutical research and development has shown strong innovation in 2023,” it added in the report.
“With the accelerated development of the new round of technological revolution and continuous breakthroughs … a new generation of treatments, such as cell therapy, gene therapy and small nucleic acid drugs, has become increasingly mature,” it said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
