Three broad China biopharma themes made their appearances in the pages of
ChinaBio® Today again last week: IP law, healthcare reform and growth
in China biopharma facilities. Our legal experts took a look at the latest draft
for a new patent law, the National Reform Commission released its proposal for
changes in China’s healthcare delivery systems, and there were a remarkable
number of new facilities opened or announced. In addition, deals continue to get
done in individual China biopharmas, as the industry continues to grow.
For three years now, China has been considering the third revision of
its patent law. The second revision has been in force since the year 2000. The
fourth proposal for this third revision, issued in August 2008, aims to raise
the bar on patent requirements and tighten patent enforcement. In undertaking
this rewriting, the ultimate goal of the government is to encourage innovation
by providing the right level of patent protection. Charles C. Liu, PhD, JD, and
Jeanne J. Liu, who have analyzed the government’s IP ideas by examining each
draft, will discuss the most recent iteration in three installments. In this
first one, they cover two specific areas: novelty and inventiveness, and secrecy
check and foreign filing license (see
story). Succeeding
installments of the series will be issued weekly.
The National Reform
Commission (NDRC) of China has proposed sweeping changes in the country’s
healthcare policy, establishing the policy goal of covering all 1.3 billion of
China’s citizens with medical insurance by 2020 (see
story). 90% of the
population will be insured within just two years. In the past twenty years,
China’s healthcare has swung from government-controlled to market-oriented. As
an unintended result of the new policy, rural citizens currently suffer from
much lower levels of medical care delivery, and all of the population, urban and
rural, is upset about its cost. The report addresses four major problems:
soaring medical fees, lack of access to affordable medical service, poor
doctor-patient relationships and low rates of medical insurance coverage. Not
surprisingly, the new plan was met with some criticism. Commentators charged
that the plan is not understandable, and to the extent that it can be
understood, that it lacks specificity. Without saying how much money it will
allocate to the various initiatives, the government did not clearly show its
commitment to solving China’s healthcare problems.
A third theme is the
tremendous proliferation of biopharma activity in China over the past 20 years,
particularly in and around the biopharma-rich area of Shanghai’s Zhangjiang
Hi-Tech Park.
