Earlier this week, reporter Brian Yang wrote a piece for STAT on how some U.S. venture capital firms are starting to invest in Chinese academic labs, hoping to tap into new discoveries and innovations before they reach the market. One thing that caught my eye about this story is a note that a visit to Beijing’s National Cancer Hospital altered the way a venture capital firm thought about academic clinical research in China. One of the hospital leaders also told STAT that it currently runs about 100 clinical trials at any given time, and that their goal was to match the US National Cancer Institute in terms of research.
This, of course, plays right into some of the concerns that scientists have had over the last year with the slowdowns and instability around public funding for research and the US losing its biotech edge. Currently, the NCI supports far more than 100 clinical trials at any given time, and probably a lot of comprehensive cancer centers in the US do as well. (In a blog post, Ohio State noted in 2024 that they have over 500 clinical trials at one time).
So, this matches what a McKinsey expert on China told me earlier this year. She said that there’s a still big gap compared to the US when it comes to academic cancer research in China. But the McKinsey expert did note that academics in China have moved rapidly towards an entrepreneurial culture that prize speed, efficiency, and translation to the clinic. From her perspective, it’s not a question of if but when the biotech epicenter shifts east.
On another note, It’s April and AACR is coming up soon. Let me know what’s on your mind as the conference comes up, and if there are any data you’re particularly excited to see.
