China life science news last week was dominated by stories of substantial foreign investments in China's pharmaceutical sector. The Swiss biopharma Novartis (NYSE: NVS) led the way, with nearly $1.4 billion in capital commitments to three separate initiatives in China. The company clearly feels that China represents growth – and Novartis has added significantly to its R&D, technical expertise, vaccine and marketing efforts there.

In its most spectacular investment, Novartis will begin a five-year, $1 billion China initiative with two aims: the company will dramatically increase its investment in its China R&D facility, and it will seek to make China one its top three markets worldwide (see story). The investment will increase the size of the company's Shanghai R&D center from its current employee count of 160 to over 1,000 eventually. At that size, China will rank with Novartis' R&D facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Only the company's home research facility in Basel, Switzerland will be larger.

As if that was not enough, Novartis announced it would also spend $250 million to expand its global technical center in Changshu, and pay $125 million to buy a 85% stake in a privately held China vaccine company, Zhejiang Tianyuan (see story). Novartis' interest in vaccines follows a worldwide trend. Zhejiang Tianyuan's revenues doubled from 2006 to 2008, when they reached $25 million. Novartis is paying five times last-year's revenues, showing that China vaccine companies are, at the moment, highly desirable.

Roche (SW: RO) opened a new $500 million biologics manufacturing facility in Singapore in the Tuas Biomedical Park (see story). The site contains two buildings, one dedicated to producing Lucentis, a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, while the other will make Avastin, a targeted cancer therapy. Both projects were initiated by Genentech, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Roche.

Microbix (TSX: MBX) of Canada signed a joint venture agreement with the Hunan Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd., a state-owned enterprise, to construct a large $200 million facility dedicated to flu vaccine production (see story). Hunan will contribute both land and early funding.