Transnational pharmaceutical companies have recently released their development plans in China as the country rolls out measures to open up the sector and promote its healthy and sustainable development, Xinhua reported on Nov. 25.

Belgian biopharmaceutical company UCB said an anti-epileptic drug and a drug to boost the immune system had been approved in China for three stages of clinical tests, expressing the hope that the new medicines will meet the Chinese market soon.

Wu Xin, managing director of UCB China, said that China’s pharmaceutical industry is full of potential for development thanks to the country’s medical reform and an internet environment that leads the world.

Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited has designated its Shanghai office as the Asian R&D headquarters, said Wang Lin, the person in charge of the company’s Asian R&D headquarters.

Twenty-five out of 40 Takeda’s clinical-stage pharmaceutical products under development are meant to enter the Chinese market, Wang said.

Foreign pharmaceutical companies are optimistic about China’s strength in R&D. At the second China International Import Expo (CIIE), pharmaceutical multinational AstraZeneca announced that it would upgrade the Shanghai R&D platform as a global R&D center.

At the end of October, Swiss Pharma giant Roche inaugurated its innovation center in Shanghai. The center, with an investment of 863 million yuan, is the third-largest Roche R&D center in the world. The center is staffed by about 150 research personnel, more than 90 percent of whom are Chinese scientists.

• Prev：China's A-shares to see foreign capital inflow spike amid MSCI index weight rise
• Next：China, US agree to solve issues on core concerns in trade talks