From Wall Street Journal:
When a small drug maker here got Food and Drug Administration approval for an AIDS drug this past summer, the Chinese pharmaceutical industry quietly passed an important milestone. As far as the agency can tell, it is the first time a Chinese company has won permission to export finished pills to the U.S.
Expect a lot more pharmaceutical makers here to get the green light over the next few years. Even as Chinese products are drawing increased scrutiny, the nation’s generic-drug industry is gearing up for the export of finished medicines. The industry is still small — India’s generics-export powerhouse is 10 times as big. But China is already the world’s largest producer of raw materials for drugs, and manufacturing those raw materials is a steppingstone to making the completed product. [Full Text]
