9:01 PM, May. 30, 2012 Lilly's diabetes research center in Shanghai, China, opens Thursday. The center will employ up to 150 researchers and staff who will focus on diabetes drugs for the Chinese. / Photo provided by Eli Lilly and Co. A drug research center that Eli Lilly and Co. opening Thursday in China gives a new twist to the growing approach of personalizing medicine for the patient. The Shanghai center focuses on discovering diabetes medicines geared specifically to the Chinese. Lilly is creating what will be its second-largest R&D center abroad because it gives greater entrée to the huge Chinese market (China is the world's most populous country, with 1.3 billion people) and responds to the spread of diabetes there (nearly 10 percent of Chinese adults have it). For a company that's long been a leader in diabetes treatment, this amounts to a choice opportunity. The diabetes-specific R&D center, holding 150 scientists and staff when full, is part of a trend in drug development, said Jan Lundberg, head of Lilly Research Laboratories. "The prevalence of diseases will not necessarily be the same .?.?. in different countries. As a global pharmaceutical company, you really need to understand that." Lundberg headed to China to dedicate the multistory building, where the red, flowing Lilly logo is mounted at the rooftop. The opening was a notable event in China, with the presidents of the China Diabetes Society and Chinese Endocrine Society on hand, along with other Chinese officials. The research center undoubtedly amounts to the Indianapolis drug maker's biggest bet on China, where it first opened a sales office in 1918. Recently, the company started a biotech venture capital fund in China (2007), established a drug testing clinic (2008) and will open an insulin production and storage building (later this year). China has been a hard-to-grasp lure for Western pharmaceutical companies. Its people still largely prefer 3,000-year-old medical treatments, from herbal medicines to acupuncture, that are based on the concept of imbalances in the body. Two-thirds of drug sales in China are traditional Chinese medicines, notes a 2009 market report by the U.S. firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. So even though China now stands as the fifth-largest market for pharmaceuticals in the world, the 15 largest global drug makers derived just 1?percent of their combined sales from China in 2009, according to a Fortune magazine report. Lilly not only sees insulin and other diabetes medicines as a growth business in China, but hopes that its R&D center can discover new drugs tailored for the Chinese or Asians in general. The company's thinking is that the Chinese genetic makeup might play a role in the ?development of diabetes and its progression. While the R&D center will do its own research with staff hired primarily from China, it will work closely with Lilly's main Indianapolis labs on many projects, Lundberg said. Heading up the center is Bei Betty Zhang, a native of Shanghai who has a doctorate from Indiana University School of Medicine and is an internationally recognized diabetes expert. Zhang says diabetes is spreading rapidly in China — perhaps due to longer life expectancies, dietary changes and a growing sedentary lifestyle — and about three-fourths of Chinese diabetics don't have their disease under control. "The research community needs to better understand the genetic and environmental factors that underlie this epidemic so that we may discover medicines that address these factors," Zhang said in a statement.
For Lilly, it's also a competitive race. Lilly's main rival in the diabetes market, the Danish company Novo Nordisk, is No. 1 in diabetes medicine sales in China, Lundberg notes. And Lilly is hustling to catch up.
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