(Yicai Global) Oct. 30 -- The Chinese government has much improved support for pharmaceutical and healthcare innovation, including intellectual property and regulatory reform, according to the chief executive of Swiss drugmaker Novartis.

That in turn has led to massive growth in healthcare and drug innovation by Chinese companies, Vasant Narasimhan said at the third World Laureates Forum in Shanghai today, adding that it does not just benefit China, but is increasingly also reaching global markets.

Research and development in the pharmaceutical area is a high-risk endeavor needing time and resources. A medicine’s development -- from the discovery of a new molecule to authorized use in patients -- typically takes about 12 to 15 years and includes a range of complex steps. Considering the vast intricacy of human biology, and the fact that every successful medicine unravels billions of years of evolution, there is a high rate of failure.

That is why innovation needs support from the strong enforcement of intellectual property rights and rapid market access, ensuring that patients can access new medicines as quickly as possible, Narasimhan said.

An innovation-friendly environment ensures that the extraordinary discoveries and invention provided by great medical and scientific minds can make a measurable and lasting difference to human health. That also requires a regulatory framework with streamlined and state-of-the-art technology for drug evaluation, review and approval, by an independent regulatory body.

In these respects, there has been tremendous progress in China, Narasimhan said. The country is the third-largest market globally for Basel-based Novartis, and is set to become the second largest in the near future.

The World Laureates Forum takes place in Shanghai from today until Nov. 1, with 61 Nobel Prize winners and other top global science award winners in attendance.

Editor: Tom Litting