Archive for ‘innovation’

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14/09/2016

India-Born MIT Scientist Wins a $500,000 Prize for Invention – India Real Time – WSJ

India-born innovator and scientist Ramesh Raskar has been awarded a $500,000 prize, one of the world’s largest single cash awards that recognizes invention.

The annual Lemelson-MIT prize, administered by the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, honors U.S. inventors who are mid-career and trying to improve the world through science and technology.Mr. Raskar is an associate professor at MIT’s Media Lab. He is known for his trailblazing work which includes the co-invention of an ultra-fast imaging camera that can see around corners, low-cost eye-care solutions and a camera that enables users to read the first few pages of a book without opening the cover.

“We are thrilled to honor Ramesh Raskar, whose breakthrough research is impacting how we see the world,” said Dorothy Lemelson, chair of the Lemelson Foundation, which funds the prize, in an MIT news release Tuesday.

Mr. Raskar hails from the Hindu pilgrimage town of Nashik in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Despite living in the U.S., he has stayed connected to his native land through his work.In 2015, while his hometown was hosting the Kumbh Mela, a month-long Hindu bathing festival that draws millions of pilgrims, he collaborated with other innovators to launch so-called Kumbhathons–special innovation camps to incubate ideas for the development of smart cities in India. The Kumbhathon tried out innovative solutions to challenges like providing housing, sanitation and transportation to pilgrims during the festival.

That effort evolved into Digital Impact Square, or DISQ, an online platform and open lab in Nashik to encourage innovation.

“The world is our lab, and a co-innovation model that spans the globe is critical for any impact-driven research,” Mr. Raskar said in emailed answers to questions.

Mr. Raskar said his background helped with his work. “My upbringing does help there, growing up in a house without even a separate bedroom or working on a farm, living in mud houses without power or water during weekends and summer holidays,” he said.

The scientist plans to use a portion of his prize money to launch help young inventors innovate in multiple countries.

“Everyone has the power to solve problems and through peer-to-peer co-invention and purposeful collaboration, we can solve problems that will impact billions of lives,” Mr. Raskar said in the MIT news release.

The past winners of the Lemelson-MIT prize include Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse; biologist Leroy Hood and Nick Holonyak, inventor of the light-emitting diode, or LED.

Source: India-Born MIT Scientist Wins a $500,000 Prize for Invention – India Real Time – WSJ

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01/11/2015

Gauging the strength of Chinese innovation | McKinsey & Company

The events of 2015 have shown that China is passing through a challenging transition: the labor-force expansion and surging investment that propelled three decades of growth are now weakening.

Gauging the strength of Chinese innovation

This is a natural stage in the country’s economic development. Yet it raises questions such as how drastically the expansion of GDP will slow down and whether the country can tap new sources of growth.

New research1 by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) suggests that to realize consensus growth forecasts—5.5 to 6.5 percent a year—during the coming decade, China must generate two to three percentage points of annual GDP growth through innovation, broadly defined. If it does, innovation could contribute much of the $3 trillion to $5 trillion a year to GDP by 2025.2 China will have evolved from an “innovation sponge,” absorbing and adapting existing technology and knowledge from around the world, into a global innovation leader. Our analysis suggests that this transformation is possible, though far from inevitable.

To date, when we have evaluated how well Chinese companies commercialize new ideas and use them to raise market share and profits and to compete around the world, the picture has been decidedly mixed. China has become a strong innovator in areas such as consumer electronics and construction equipment. Yet in others—creating new drugs or designing automobile engines, for example—the country still isn’t globally competitive. That’s true even though every year it spends more than $200 billion on research (second only to the United States), turns out close to 30,000 PhDs in science and engineering, and leads the world in patent applications (more than 820,000 in 2013). Video   McKinsey director Kevin Sneader discusses global innovation trends at a recent World Economic Forum event.

When we look ahead, though, we see broad swaths of opportunity. Our analysis suggests that by 2025, such new innovation opportunities could contribute $1.0 trillion to $2.2 trillion a year to the Chinese economy—or equivalent to up to 24 percent of total GDP growth. To achieve this goal, China must continue to transform the manufacturing sector, particularly through digitization, and the service sector, through rising connectivity and Internet enablement. Additional productivity gains would come from progress in science- and engineering-based innovation and improvements in the operations of companies as they adopt modern business methods.

To develop a clearer view of this potential, we identified four innovation archetypes: customer focused, efficiency driven, engineering based, and science based. We then compared the actual global revenues of individual industries with what we would expect them to generate given China’s share of global GDP (12 percent in 2013). As the exhibit shows, Chinese companies that rely on customer-focused and efficiency-driven innovation—in industries such as household appliances, Internet software and services, solar panels, and construction machinery—perform relatively well. Exhibit Enlarge However, Chinese companies are not yet global leaders in any of the science-based industries (such as branded pharmaceuticals) that we analyzed. In engineering-based industries, the results are inconsistent: China excels in high-speed trains but gets less than its GDP-based share from auto manufacturing. In this article, we’ll describe the state of play and the outlook in these four categories, starting with the two outperformers.

Source: Gauging the strength of Chinese innovation | McKinsey & Company

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08/09/2015

From ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovate in China’ – International Finance Magazine

In the West, people often opine that Chinese are not innovators but just copiers who can make a product at a cheaper rate. If somebody mentions inventions, like gunpowder and printing press which were invented by the Chinese, the argument often ends up with ‘they have not really followed through with their innovations and have since then made little progress in this department’.

From ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovate in China’But the Chinese are ready to transform themselves from the factory of the world to the generator of innovation. Companies like Alibaba Group and Xiaomi among others are making a mark in the world.

“I understand that the China market is characterised by some significant weaknesses when compared to a highly mature Silicon Valley, but the investment power and determination of the Chinese government, along with its appetite to transition away from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovated in China’ leaves no doubt in my mind that China will become a leader when it comes to building ecosystems for growth of startups and other innovative organisations,” says Lars Lin Villebaek, co-founder of GrowthEnabler.com, a platform for startups. He has 10 years of personal entrepreneurship experience in China.

Last year, China gave birth to a massive 1.9 million new businesses (across all sectors) and saw some record breaking IPOs in the global market.

And unlike the US, which has Silicon Valley and the area around Boston which are known for their startup ecosystems, China has several dozen ‘Silicon Valleys’. “Most of these are in the embryonic stage. Silicon Valley has a long history of success while the Chinese ones are new. The oldest — Zhongquancun in Beijing district — dates back to the ’80s,” says Zhang Chia Hou, China & India analyst and a board member of GrowthEnabler.com and author of http://www.chindia-alert.org.

According to Wan Gang, China’s minister of science and technology, the district last year birthed 49 startups daily. As of March 2015, 129 high-tech zones had been approved by the State Council. These are designated areas in different cities where entrepreneurs are supported by different policies and benefits, such as fast Internet connections, government assistance in funding, and access to talented and educated human resources from nearby universities.

“Zhongquancun is also home to several universities like the prestigious Tsinghua University which churns out PhDs and computer scientists by the thousands. So there is no shortage of people who understand technology and the investment tap is flowing quite readily,” says Erik Roth, an entrepreneur, lecturer, serial innovator and lead for McKinsey & Company’s Global Innovation & Growth Practice.

Apart from Zhongquancun, Shanghai and Chengdu are also home to several startups.

According to Villebaek, there are several other factors which will help China achieve the ‘startup capital of the world’ status. There is ample access to funding even for high-risk projects. As long as projects replicate proven business models and products, the financing is usually done very quickly.

Additionally, successful companies like Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have taken upon themselves to nurture the startup system in the country.

Says Alibaba Group spokeswoman: “Our founders started Alibaba Group to champion small businesses, in the belief that the Internet would level the playing field by enabling smallenterprises to leverage innovation and technology to grow and compete more effectively in the domestic and global economies. Alibaba supports innovative entrepreneurs who are able to create products and services that benefit the end user and society as a whole.”

Also, some Chinese are going for international exposure. “Most of the emerging class of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma, studied at leading US universities, and worked for great corporations and investment firms. Most Chinese who can afford it (foreign education) decide to have an experience abroad,” says Christoph Tutsch, founder and CEO of ONPEX, a company which provides white-label cloud-based payment technology.

Tutsch adds that China is going in the right direction and people are educating themselves to achieve their goals. “They are trying to think out of the box for solutions that will help the local problems. Even now, they are many successful tech companies in China that no one has heard of because they are kept in the local market, which is good for self-improvement. In the next few years, we will start hearing of more Alibabas who venture West,” says Tutsch.

Where they need to improve

Historically, the Chinese do not have a culture of risk taking. “In a long time, I have not noticed any disruptive business model from China,” remarks Roth. The educational system in the country will have to focus on research and offer education in entrepreneurship to address the needs of entrepreneurs.

“The young in general are following the old path of secure jobs in government or established industry. But with 1.3 billion people, there are enough youngsters interested in innovation and entrepreneurship for them to be a real force,” says Zhang.

Source: From ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovate in China’-International Finance Magazine

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14/08/2015

‘Car suit’ keeps vehicles high and dry during floods, Chinese inventor says | South China Morning Post

A man in eastern China has invented a “suit” for cars he claims protects them from water damage during the floods that regularly inundate the mainland’s coastal cities, an online newspaper reports.

The cover consists of a copolymer thermoplastic material and waterproof zippers. Photo: SCMP Pictures

More than 3,000 vehicles were flooded when Typhoon Soudelor hit Taizhou in Zhejiang province on August 8, Thepaper.cn reports. One photo of the storm that has drawn particular interest online shows a car wrapped in a heavy, water-proof material.

The man behind the idea is Huang Enfu, a businessman who deals in car parts. “News about damaged cars during urban floods regularly appears. Our costal city often sees such floods. That’s why I invented the suit,” Huang was quoted as saying.

The cover consists of a copolymer thermoplastic material and waterproof zippers. A car owner puts the suit down in an empty space, parks the vehicle over top, pulls the sides up and zips it closed.

Huang said he spent more than 1.6 million yuan (HK$1.93 million) and two years coming up with the idea. He has patented the design and sells them for between 1,500 yuan and 2,500 yuan

Residents in mainland cities have long complained urban sewage systems cannot cope with heavy rainfall during the wet season. Drains easily become overloaded and the water levels on flooded main streets can quickly rise past people’s waists.

Huang says his invention will even allow a properly zipped-up car to float if the water levels become too high. Owners can secure the car suit by tying the four attached ropes to a stationary object.

via ‘Car suit’ keeps vehicles high and dry during floods, Chinese inventor says | South China Morning Post.

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10/08/2015

‘Silicon Valley’ China

The following was in answer to a series of questions by a journalist from International Finance Magazine.

The specific questions and answers are:

> Do you think China can be the next Silicon Valley? Indubitably

> What are your reasons? See this paper

> What according to you are the differentiating factors between China and Silicon Valley? Longevity, experience and culture including education system.

> Which are the areas where China scores points over Silicon Valley and which are the areas wherein it needs to improve?Whereas the US has a Silicon Valley and the area around Boston, China has several dozen ‘silicon valleys’ though most are in embryonic stage. Whereas the US Silicon Valley has a long history of success, which breeds success, the Chinese ones are all very new, although the oldest Zhongquancun in a Beijing suburb dates from the 80s; and in 2014 launched nearly 50 tech start-ups. See III.

> What steps does China need to take to have more of AliBabas in the country? See this paper which suggests that steps are already being taken.

> Some say that there is no dearth of money in China and hence there are many VCs and private equity firms. However, what is lacking is a disciplined approach. Your take on this. Agreed. However, the two magnets for investment in the past have been real estate and the so-called stock market, which is another name for legalized gambling.  Both have suffered reverses, property for a while and recently the stock market.  The Chinese investor is a quick learner.  Sooner rather than later they will turn to instruments and institutions that invest in innovation.

> How well are the young Chinese embracing entrepreneurship? The young in general are following the old path of secure jobs in government or established industry.  But with 1.3 billion people, there are enough youngsters interested in innovation and entrepreneurship for them to be a real force.

>Does the education system in China foster this? No it does not, See II – 3. last para.

 ==================

I believe that China is rapidly catching up with the US in innovation and entrepreneurship.  I say this for four reasons:

i. China has always been innovative and inventive.

ii. The Chinese government sees innovation and entrepreneurship as the solution to its rapidly dated ‘cheap’ mass manufacturing. It knows that China is experiencing its version of the industrial revolution in a fraction of the time it took the west and needs a new trick up its sleeve if China is not to be relegated to a third-world nation once again.

iii. China is already innovative and entrepreneurial in practice and speeding up the learning curve at the same speed it took up industrialization after Deng.

iv. Some respected ‘guru’s think so too.

I.   China has always been innovative and very inventive.

 We have all heard of gunpowder, movable press, paper making and the compass.  In 1948, Joseph Needham, Cambridge University set out to document Chinese innovation – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Needham Needham had heard a lot about this and was slightly skeptical, so he started professional research on it.  Today, his work – Science and Civilisation in China  – is still in progress although he passed away.  Seven volumes in 27 books have been published so far and the end is not in sight.  To help the lay reader, Prof Robert Temple has written a short book on it – The Genius of China –http://www.curledup.com/geniusch.htm

II.  The Chinese government is focused on innovation and entrepreneurship.

It knows that its current USP, inexpensive and mass manufacturing will not last.  In fact, in some low tech areas it is discouraging any new factories.  It has also been steadily pushing up the minimum wage, thereby discoursing such manufacturing. In my view it has done four specific things to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship:

  1. Five-year plans, in particular:
  1. a. the 12th (2011 – 2015) – http://www.c2es.org/international/key-country-policies/china/energy-climate-goals-twelfth-five-year-plan – which included this section:

              Old pillar industries               The new strategic and emerging industries

1 National defense Energy saving and environmental protection
2 Telecom Next generation information technology
3 Electricity Biotechnology
4 Oil High-end manufacturing (e.g. aeronautics, high speed rail)
5 Coal New energy (nuclear, solar, wind, biomass)
6 Airlines New materials (special and high performance composites)
7 Marine shipping Clean energy vehicles (PHEVs and electric cars)

Sources: “Decision on speeding up the cultivation and development of emerging strategic industries,” http://www.gov.cn, September 8, 2010, http://www.gov.cn/ldhd/2010-09/08/content_1698604.htm; HSBC, China’s next 5-year plan: What it means for equity markets, October 2010.

1.b and the 13th (2016 – 2020) – http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/understanding-chinas-13th-five-year-plan/ – one of whose aims is likely to be “to support emerging industries”

  1. “Made in China 2025” policy – http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2015-05/19/content_20760528.htm -The 10 key sectors are new information technology, numerical control tools and robotics,aerospace equipment, ocean engineering equipment and high-tech ships, railway equipment,energy saving and new energy vehicles, power equipment, new materials, biological medicineand medical devices, and agricultural machinery.
  2. “Mass innovation and entrepreneurship” – http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2015-01/29/content_19436562.htm– “Chinawill foster a platform offering low-cost services in a variety of areasto micro businesses and individual start-ups that show

The government will also step up policy support, such as simplifying registration proceduresand giving subsidies, to innovative businesses. They will improve financing systems to givespecial support to start-up companies, according to the statement.

Although China’s broader economy is slowing, China’s young entrepreneurs are driving awave of startups that has become a bright spot for the economic landscape and an importantengine for future growth.

The number of newly founded companies in China surged almost 46 percent year on year to3.65 million in 2014, the latest data showed.”

China is very aware that the current education system does not foster innovation or entrepreneurship; so it is proposing major reform – http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015twosession/2015-03/11/content_19783458.htm – Current Chinese education has been criticized by many for being rigid and killing students’ imagination. In many exams, students are supposed to memorize the standard answer instead of putting forward their own ideas.

“Innovation requires the ability to seek different answers to the same question, through which they still reach the right destination,”

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015-01/28/c_133954148.htm – “China’s State Council pledged to take various steps to create an amicable environment for innovation and entrepreneurship in order to power growth and generate jobs. … Although China’s broader economy is slowing, China’s young entrepreneurs are driving a wave of startups that has become a bright spot for the economic landscape and an important engine for future growth.

The number of newly founded companies in China surged almost 46 percent year on year to 3.65 million in 2014, the latest data showed.”

III. Innovation in practice

In practice, China now leads in world patent filing – https://chindia-alert.org/2015/05/21/patent-applications-lead-the-worldfocuschinadaily-com-cn/ – though in terms of patents filed in the US it is still behind Japan.

Chinese ‘silicon valleys’ – in addition to Zhongquancun, opened in the 80s – 80s –http://www.forbes.com/sites/ruima/2014/10/20/one-billion-chinese-entrepreneurs/andhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-11/china-s-silicon-valley-sparking-49-technology-startups-a-day.  there are dozens around the country.  It seems the ‘copycat’ syndrome applies to coy-catting innovation and entrepreneurship!- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-23/china-wants-silicon-valleys-everywhere

Chinese innovative products include, of course, AliBaba; but also, according to Forbes, in eight ‘industries –http://www.forbes.com/sites/anaswanson/2014/11/30/eight-innovative-industries-china-does-better-than-anywhere-else/:

  1. Micropayments
  2. E-commerce
  3. Delivery services
  4. Online investment products
  5. Cheap smart phones
  6. High speed rail
  7. Hydroelectricity
  8. DNA sequencing

IV.From ‘guru’s

You do not need to take my word for it, see comments by:

  1. Kai-Fu Lee, Google exec – http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/07/30/behind-the-surge-in-chinese-tech-startups/?mod=chinablog&mod=chinablog
  2. McKinsey & Co – http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/asia-pacific/a_ceos_guide_to_innovation_in_china

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30/07/2015

Behind the Surge in Chinese Tech Startups – China Real Time Report – WSJ

In 2009, then-Google executive Kai-Fu Lee wrote a letter to Chinese college students discouraging them from the start-up world. Young people then simply weren’t ready to strike out on their own, he said. The gist, he said: “Don’t start a company. It’s tough. There are wolves out there.”

Today, he says, China’s young people are themselves proving to be an innovative pack. Internet availability, manufacturing know-how and the smartphone revolution have fueled a surge of Chinese startups in China over the past few years, many run by members of a post-digital generation of youngsters. The rush has led to a wave of investment in Chinese startups by investors looking for the next Alibaba, and thrown into question China’s longtime reputation as a market dependent on copycatting.

Back then, “there were so few serial entrepreneurs in China,” he said on Thursday at Converge, a technology conference co-hosted by The Wall Street Journal and f.ounders. “We really had to find either very young people or find professional managers or senior engineers out of companies like Google and Baidu and help them start a company.” Now, he says, “there are serial entrepreneurs everywhere.”

In some places, the rush may be getting ahead of itself. Mr. Lee—now chairman and chief executive of investment firm and tech incubator Innovation Works—sees “totally crazy” valuations among Chinese tech initial public offerings. Many of the best already went public overseas, including in the U.S. The few left in China “have been blown out of proportion,” he said, adding, “everybody’s chasing those few stocks.”

But overall, he says, “I’m very bullish about the future.”

Mr. Lee, famous in China for his roles at Google and Innovation Works, is also a social-media presence. He says that since forming Innovation Works in 2009 he has seen attitudes change among young Chinese.

“They grew up their total lives on the Internet, unlike us, who have all this baggage,” he said.

That’s potentially good news for Beijing, which is looking to sustain growth by broadening the world’s No. 2 economy, making it more than the world’s factory floor.

Innovation may take a different form than what the U.S. expects, Mr. Lee said. Innovators in China and elsewhere, rather than inventing the next iPhone, “can change the world because of a very clever business idea.”

“China is completely ready to build a Facebook-equivalent type of company, an Uber-equivalent type of company, in many other areas, because the market is very large and the people are very innovative,” he said.

Innovation Works currently sees promise in startups with products like a piano that can teach the user how to play, a household robot and even an online joke platform “for people to share the embarrassing moments in their lives.” And then there’s a venture built around a Chinese girl band, SNH48, that takes a page from Japan’s AKB48 and hopes to make money selling virtual products to an online community of fans.

Even if many of the ideas from China’s startups are themselves derivative, he said, “they will wow people.”

via Behind the Surge in Chinese Tech Startups – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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21/05/2015

Patent applications lead the world|Focus|chinadaily.com.cn

China recorded 928,000 invention patent applications in 2014, more than that of any other country, for the fourth consecutive year, according to data released by the State Intellectual Property Office on Monday.

Patent applications lead the world

The office found that about 663,000 inventions had high quality and market value. About 4.9 patents per 10,000 population were filed, according to the data.

Enterprises have been pillars of research and the development of new technologies and products, according to the office.

In 2014, about 485,000 invention patent applications were filed by enterprises, more than the number filed by individuals, academies or research institutes.

“It shows that China has already established a new technological innovation system that is strongly bolstered by enterprises,” said Gan Shaoning, deputy head of the office.

Huawei Technologies, the world’s biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, was granted 2,409 invention patents in 2014, according to the SIPO data.

China’s inventors need to raise the quality of their inventions in order to catch up with world’s best, Gan said.

Market insiders said economic growth, as well as higher demand from industry and individual consumers, have pushed up the number of inventions.

“New inventions enable businesses to run at lower cost, with greater efficiency and with more care for the environment. For customers, inventions simply mean a better life and more choices,” said Zhang Ming, a Shanghai-based patent consultant.

In 2014, applications for invention patents accounted for 39.3 percent of all applications, exceeding that of so-called utility model applications – mainly cosmetic design or appearance – which stood at 36.8 percent, a recent SIPO circular said.

One of China’s priorities has been to boost innovation by improving protections for intellectual property, an effort that has induced many intellectual property rights firms to expand business here.

The country also plans to set up a standardized IPR service system by 2020, according to a guideline jointly released by the SIPO, the Standardization Administration, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the National Copyright Administration.

Awapatent, a consultancy firm specializing in intellectual property, launched its Asian arm this month in Beijing and Hong Kong – AWA Asia – in response to increasingly frequent calls from clients in the region.

via Patent applications lead the world|Focus|chinadaily.com.cn.

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14/05/2015

India learns to ‘fail fast’ as tech start-up culture takes root | Reuters

After ping pong tables, motivational posters and casual dress codes, India’s tech start-ups are following Silicon Valley‘s lead and embracing the “fail fast” culture credited with fuelling creativity and success in the United States.

Taking failure as a norm is a major cultural shift in India, where high-achieving children are typically expected to take steady jobs at recognised firms. A failed venture hurts family status and even marriage prospects.

But that nascent acceptance, fuelled by returning engineers and billions of dollars in venture fund investment, is for many observers a sign that India’s $150 billion tech industry is coming of age, moving from a back office powerhouse to a creative force.

“There is obviously increased acceptance,” said Raghunandan G, co-founder of TaxiForSure, which was sold to rival Ola this year. He is now investing in others’ early stage ventures.

“My co-founder Aprameya (Radhakrishna) used to have lines of prospective brides to meet … the moment we started our own company, all those prospective alliances disappeared. No one wanted their daughters to marry a start-up guy.”

Srikanth Chunduri returned to India after studying at Duke University in the United States, and is now working on his second venture. “I think what’s encouraging is that acceptance of failure is increasing despite the very deep-rooted Asian culture where failure is a big no,” he said.

“IT’S OK TO FAIL”

via India learns to ‘fail fast’ as tech start-up culture takes root | Reuters.

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03/04/2015

A New Cancer Drug, Made in China – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Xian-Ping Lu left his job as director of research at drug maker Galderma R&D in Princeton, N.J., to co-found a biotech company to develop new medicines in his native China. As the WSJ’s Shirley S. Wang reports:

It took more than 14 years but the bet could be paying off. In February, Shenzhen Chipscreen Biosciences’ first therapy, a medication for a rare type of lymph-node cancer, hit the market in China.

The willingness of veterans like Dr. Lu and others to leave multinational drug companies for Chinese startups reflects a growing optimism in the industry here. The goal, encouraged by the government, is to move the Chinese drug industry beyond generic medicines and drugs based on ones developed in the West.

Chipscreen’s drug, called chidamide, or Epidaza, was developed from start to finish in China. The medicine is the first of its kind approved for sale in China, and just the fourth in a new class globally. Dr. Lu estimates the research cost of chidamide was about $70 million, or about one-tenth what it would have cost to develop in the U.S.

“They are a good example of the potential for innovation in China,” said Angus Cole, director at Monitor Deloitte and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology lead in China.

China’s spending on pharmaceuticals is expected to top $107 billion in 2015, up from $26 billion in 2007, according to Deloitte China. It will become the world’s second-largest drug market, after the U.S., by 2020, according to an analysis published last year in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice.

via A New Cancer Drug, Made in China – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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29/01/2015

China eyes mass innovation, entrepreneurship as new engine – Xinhua | English.news.cn

China’s State Council pledged to take various steps to create an amicable environment for innovation and entrepreneurship in order to power growth and generate jobs.

China should embrace the trend of mass entrepreneurship and innovation in the Internet age, a statement released after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang said.

The statement said China will foster a platform offering low-cost services in a variety of areas to micro businesses and individual start-ups that show innovation.

The government will also step up policy support, such as simplifying registration procedures and giving subsidies, to innovative businesses. They will improve financing systems to give special support to start-up companies, according to the statement.

Although China’s broader economy is slowing, China’s young entrepreneurs are driving a wave of startups that has become a bright spot for the economic landscape and an important engine for future growth.

The number of newly founded companies in China surged almost 46 percent year on year to 3.65 million in 2014, the latest data showed.

via China eyes mass innovation, entrepreneurship as new engine – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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