Han unveils Novartis R&D center plan
7/11/2006 16:09
Shanghai Daily News
Mayor Han Zheng attended a
ceremony yesterday to mark Novartis' plan to build a US$100 millionresearch and
development center in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park.
The Shanghai
facility will become the pharmaceutical giant's first integrated research and
development center in China, the Switzerland-based company said
yesterday.
The new hub will be constructed in a biomedical R&D center in
Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park. The new facility, scheduled to open in May
2007, will be the eighth site in Novartis' global research and development
network.
The center will initially focus on infectious causes of cancer
endemic to China and Asia, including liver cancer associated with hepatitis B.
China now accounts for about one-third of the 400 million people infected with
hepatitis B. Experts estimate that the virus kills 300,000 people on the Chinese
mainland each year.
The research center will also conduct studies into
traditional Chinese medicine.
"The Shanghai center will allow us to combine
modern drug discovery approaches with those of traditional Chinese medicine that
have been used to treat patients in China for thousands of years," said Daniel
Vesella, the company's chairman and chief executive officer.
Novartis has
been collaborating with the Shanghai Institute of Material Medica since 2000 to
isolate natural products from traditional Chinese medicine.
Novartis operates
seven companies in China, backed by US$265 million in total investment.
Its
compound annual sales have grown more than 30 percent growth over the past five
years in China.
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