From the Wall Street Journal (maybe a comeback for traditional Chinese medicine):
Mr. Shen, head botanist for the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, a government-funded laboratory, has spent three decades trekking across China and going to great lengths to ferret out rare plants and herbs traditionally used in treatments for ailments ranging from aches and pains to cancer.
His bag of plants has captured the interest of Swiss drug giant Novartis AG, which since 2000 has invested several million dollars in a venture with SIMM…. Earlier this month, Novartis announced it will invest about $100 million in its own pharmaceutical research-and-development center in Shanghai.
Facing soaring costs in developing new drugs and a limited pipeline of promising candidates, Novartis hopes that traditional Chinese medicines will hold the secrets for a new generation of blockbusters to fight diseases such as Alzheimer’s. [Full Text, subscribers only]
– Also Jehangir Pocha’s Animal Tester for Forbes Asia magazine, a look at one of the aspects Western big pharma firms are going to China for low cost and no ethics hassle.
