Perspectives on China blog

The past few months brought an unprecedented level of disruption to China’s biopharma ecosystem. Through my interactions with senior executives at leading multinationals and Chinese biotech companies, as well as discussions with my colleagues and other trusted market experts, I developed a few perspectives on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, and on what the future implications might be. These views are certainly bound to evolve, as we deepen our understanding of the virus and of its ...

After a hot period of rapid growth from 2009 to 2012 and a relatively cooler period of slower growth from 2013 to 2015, China has once again become a top-of-mind priority for the CEOs of most large, multinational pharmaceutical companies. In March 2019, the R&D-Based Pharmaceutical Association Committee (RDPAC) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) hosted the International Pharmaceutical Innovation Forum in Beijing. No fewer than seven CEOs of major ...

I have had the privilege of living in China for well over a decade. The healthcare market has changed dramatically during this time, and it has never been a dull experience to follow its development. I have come to the conclusion, though, that the China market has never been more exciting than it is today. Here are 8 reasons why. 1. The potential for patient and economic impact is gigantic Healthy China 2030, China’s national healthcare strategy published in 2016, has set ambitious targets ...

2018 will go down in Chinese economic history as the year the high-flying peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry plunged back to earth. It seems as if a week doesn’t go by without a couple of P2P founders announcing they’re shutting down. In the first half of 2018 alone, 300 P2P platforms went out of business. Yet, even with such a massive number of closures, another 1,800 P2P platforms were still operating as of July, according to Wangdaizhijia, a website that tracks the ...

The trade war between the US and China is casting a long shadow over the prospects for the Chinese economy. With China’s gradual shift from an investment-led to a consumption-driven economy, all eyes are on the Chinese consumer as the primary engine of growth. Are they still confident? Are they still spending? Can they power China through these turbulent times? These are just some of the questions I get asked by clients and experts here on the ground in China. I won’t attempt to ...

As Chinese companies brace themselves for the potential impact of the brewing trade war with the US, a less widely publicized, but far more profound set of challenges threatens their ability to survive in the next decade. Until recently, things have been really good for Chinese companies: Extraordinary macroeconomic growth, a raft of pro-business government policies and incentives, and the unleashing of decades of pent-up consumer demand among a newly-confident middle class have fueled record ...

Three years ago, we unveiled the China Drug Innovation Index (CDII), prepared in collaboration with BayHelix in the context of the annual BioCentury China Healthcare conference. The index highlighted progress and challenges facing the development of a healthy ecosystem to support China biopharma innovation. I covered some of the key findings in an article here on LinkedIn, “This is what experts tell us about China Innovation.” As the environment continues to rapidly evolve, we ...

China’s journey toward becoming a dynamic digital nation is well underway, but few observers appreciate the pace of change or the sheer enormity of the upside. New research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) finds that digitization can shift—or newly create—as much as 45 percent of industry revenue across China. That is creative destruction on a large scale, which would root out widespread inefficiency in many Chinese industries—economy-wide, China’s labor ...

Asian insurers are riding several positive trends, like the region’s growing middle class and their increasing demand for insurance. Over the past five years, Asian consumers contributed more than half of the global growth in life insurance premiums. Capital markets have certainly noticed: Insurance players with a significant Asian presence have an average price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio close to 20—compared to a P/E of 10 to 15 for those that don’t, according to Bloomberg. But ...

If one thing is clear from our recent survey of 10,000 Chinese consumers – Double-clicking on the Chinese consumer – it’s that Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards brands have shifted significantly in recent years. Today, it’s harder to understand what drives Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards the brands they choose but, on the surface, their preference seems to skew towards local brands. This is not a new trend; our 2016 China Consumer Report saw a rise in ...

Along with the rest of the world, I watched in awe on November 11 as the sales--$25 billion in just 24 hours--rolled in during the world’s largest shopping festival, Singles Day. Singles Day came as we were in the final stages of writing our latest China consumer trends report – Double clicking on the Chinese consumer. Each year we survey 10,000 consumers to better understand the attitudes and beliefs that shape their decisions. The resulting report reveals four major trends that ...

Joe Ngai: So Gordon, one of the topics these days is around the Greater Bay Area. This is actually around Shenzhen, Hong Kong--we used to call it the Pearl River Delta Area. In your predictions, you think that this is actually one of the up and coming regions for China. Why do you think that? Gordon Orr: Well for starters, this region has been growing faster than the average across China. So it's been part of the continuing shift of the center of gravity of China's economic activity. It's been ...