Drug discovery in China: challenges and opportunities

Human history is also a chronicle of battling against diseases. Thanks to the rapid advancement of life science and biotechnologies such as gene editing and deep sequencing, recent decades have seen more and more untreatable illnesses on the verge of being conquered. However, an efficient drug-innovation system involves multiple driving forces—policy stimulation and commercial interests play important roles, besides advances in science and technology. Therefore, establishing the synergism among various driving forces is essential for new drug discovery and development. As the most populous country in the world, China has the largest population of a broad spectrum of diseases, offering a unique environment for research and development in biomedicine and disease therapies. Although most pharmaceutical companies in China have been focused on making generic drugs in the past, some efforts in developing first-in-class drugs are paying off, especially in the small-molecule drugs. What are the emerging trends in drug discovery? What does Artificial Intelligence (AI) bring to drug development and medical treatments? In the future, how will China take advantage of abundant resources and proactive policies to accelerate drug development? Recently, NSR organized a forum focusing on these issues, with the attendance of five distinguished domestic pharmaceutical scientists. Ke Ding Professor in the College of Pharmacy, Jinan University, Jinan, China Shengyong Yang Professor in the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China Zhen Yang Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, China Ao Zhang Professor in the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China Demin Zhou Professor in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China Mu-ming Poo (Chair) Director of the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Executive Editor-in-Chief of NSR, Shanghai, China