China and India Are Moving Fast in Life Sciences - That happens when everyone wants to be a scientist or engineer when they grow up

The 2008 BIO International Convention was held last week in San Diego and most of the buzz was about the rapid gains China and India have made in the Biotech field.

Here are a few relevant quotes from the panel on Asian Biotech:

Charles Hsu (Bay City Capital): “A chief scientific officer from an international big pharma company told me 'we are no longer coming to China for cost savings, we are coming because the Chinese work hard and they value education. We no longer find that in the US.'”

Michael Hui (Shanghai ChemPartner): "In 2002, our company was getting started, now it has 1,300 scientists. In 2002 Shanghai ChemPartners was the only biomedical company in the Zhiangjiang Technology Park in Shanghai. Now there are 1,000 biomedical companies. 

"Chinese scientists working in America now want to go back to China, unlike three years ago. Because of the huge upsurge in biomedical business activity."

"The biggest challenge is IP because the whole industry is heading toward the high value part of the drug chain. Still the elements of IP protection – a confidentially agreement, the non-compete, the culture of disclosure (most important and changing) – are becoming easier as they become more familiar. More law firms are establishing an office in Shanghai, showing that the biotech industry is very concerned with IP protection. This is a good sign."

Charles Hsu (Bay City Capital): "Every time I’ve tried to make a prediction, I’ve been too conservative. For China and India, truly front-line drug discovery will take place, much more quickly than people imagine."

Kiplinger wrote a brief report on the conference worth reading.

Hmmmm...I guess that is what happens when every child wants to be an engineer or scientist when they grow up - rapid growth of science-based businesses.

Comments

[Kumar]

Bob,

Please verify my following comments, but I recently read that India and China in fact have LESS engineers than the US due to the way they classify "engineers". Apparently, mechanics, plumbers, and other skilled trades are classified as engineers in India and China. This throws the actual figures way off and lends credence to the fact that the US graduates more engineers than either India or China.

Bob Comments:

There is a great deal of misinformation about the number of engineers each country is graduating because of the different nomenclature used by each country.

What you are referring to is a recent report that the US graduates more engineers per capita than India or China. Of course India and China have 4 times the "capita" of the U.S., so I still am not certain we have a reliable number.

Here are a couple of facts that are accurate:

1- of all U.S. college graduates in 2007, 5% majored in engineering.

2- Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, HP, Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, GE, etc have all opened large R&D centers (in addition to other facilities) in India or China or both in the past decade, presumably because they are able to find quality engineers at reasonable salaries.

I can't recall a major US company opening an R&D center in the US and announcing the desire to hire 5,000 engineers or scientists in the following 12 months. But I'm only 52 years old.