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  • FROM THE ANALYST'S COUCH

Trends in oncology drug innovation in China

  1. Guanqiao Li

    1. Tsinghua Clinical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

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  2. Yunhe Qin

    1. Pharmcube (Beijing) Co., Ltd., Beijing, China.

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  3. Cuicui Xie

    1. Pharmcube (Beijing) Co., Ltd., Beijing, China.

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  4. Yi-Long Wu

    1. Guangdong Lung Cancer Institute, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital and Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China.

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  5. Xiaoyuan Chen

    1. Tsinghua Clinical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

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There has never been a more exciting pharmaceutical era in China, with the R&D emphasis shifting from generic to innovative drugs. Oncology has been at the forefront of this transition. Indeed, 12 out of 44 of the new cancer drugs approved in China in between 2018 and August 2020 were discovered in China. Although most were me-too drugs from established drug classes, first-in-class candidates are also emerging.

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Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 20, 15-16 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-020-00195-w

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Yangzhong Zhou (Peking Union Medical College Hospital), Xinye Wang and Zhenghao Fan (Tsinghua University) for contributing to this manuscript. We also thank Hongxi Hu and Shuona Yuan (Pharmcube) for data cleansing.

Supplementary Information

  1. Supplementary information

Competing Interests

Y.Q. and C.X. are staff at Pharmcube. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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