Asian innovation in pharmaceutical and medical device industry – beyond tomorrow

The Asian region has passed a long and rocky road during the past several decades to establish itself as the second leading regional biotech market globally. China has become the second largest pharmaceutical market while Japan holds a strong second position as the global hub for medical devices development and innovation. Pharmaceutical expenditure continues to outpace real GDP growth in most of these countries. The trend is likely to be continued for a decade ahead, driven by a myriad of factors ranging from aging populations, rapidly growing welfare and increased citizen expectations raising demand for novel medicines and technologies. Satisfaction of these unmet needs in terms of supply is coming from the large multinational companies in wealthier among these societies. Domestic born and largely state-owned manufacturing industries continue to play a crucial role in an array of middle-income countries. Global biotech hub of Singapore is hosting over 1.5 times more headquarters of large pharmaceutical companies than Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong combined together. Japanese Takeda, Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo and Otsuka and Chinese Sinopharm, Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals Corporation, SPH and Yunnan Baiyao are now enlisted in leading Top 25 pharmaceutical companies rankings as per their annual net revenues in 2020-2021. Global industry landscape is evolving with ever more Asian companies obtaining the sharp innovative competitiveness leading development of cutting-edge medical technologies. Asian societies demand for pharmaceuticals and medical services continue to be characterized with unmet needs and striving to increase supply capacities. Financial obstacles of affordability of life saving medicines to the ordinary citizens shall be gradually overcome with an array of reimbursement strategies and extended insurance coverage policies. Observing the broad landscape throughout Asian region, we may witness that optimism in terms of domestic real GDP growth and consecutive biotech industry forecasts remains firmly rooted in years to come. Biosimilars are not a focus of the paper.