Eli Lilly continues to expand R&D investment in China

United States-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly will continue to pour research and development investments in China to accelerate local pharmaceutical innovations and benefit the patients, said a senior executive of the company.

The company invests 25 percent of its revenue a year in R&D, which is industry leading with that investment level, and a key in R&D in China is the incubation of the early ideas, said Ben Basil, president and general manager of Lilly China, during an exclusive interview with China Daily when the company hosted the Lilly China Science Day themed "together to innovation" in Shanghai on Thursday.

The event brought together renowned experts and scholars, top investment institutions, and innovation partners to build an exchange platform to communicate about cutting-edge science, explore cooperation opportunities and catalyze innovation cooperation, helping to build a more comprehensive and open innovation ecosystem.

"We bring stakeholders together to continue to harness the power of the aligned goals in key therapeutic areas to incubate the best ideas. And I believe that's the model going forward that we'll continue to take the next step forward on," said Basil.

He said that, in 2011, the company launched the Lilly Asia Venture Fund, an independent venture capital fund designed to support healthcare innovation. In 2018, it initiated the Lilly China innovation and collaboration program with the purpose of leveraging all the company had in resources, scientists, and translational medicine capabilities to tap into the local talent and stakeholders and ultimately make a difference in the lives of people.

"Over the last decade, almost 20 different partnerships in this regard have been established and generated good results. For example, we developed COVID antibodies through that model," Basil said.

At the event, Lilly China announced its intention to reach new strategic cooperation with five local innovative biotechnology companies, which Basil describes as having mutual goals with the company and overlapping between their core competency, therapeutic focus and ability to bear even better fruits to support the blueprint around Healthy China 2030, a national guideline aimed at promoting overall health.

Basil mentioned that the company recently has two blockbuster products - a medicine to treat obesity in some international markets and diabetes in some others as well as another potential drug achieving good results in Alzheimer's disease researches. The company will make its best efforts to bring them to China as soon as possible.

Obesity is sometimes regarded as a choice in some social cultures but it is a real disease that leads to complications, including cardiovascular disease - one of the leading causes of death. Basil said he expected the potential drug will become a game changer for patients.

Regarding diabetes, roughly one in four people in the world with the disease are in China, and only about half of them are in control of their disease situations.

"Our ultimate goal is to bring an arsenal of breakthrough therapies that can meet the needs of all of those individual patients of different health situations," said Basil.