NOVARTIS PLANS $100 MILLION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER IN CHINA

Novartis is taking advantage of China's inexpensive labor and rapidly growing drug market by building a $100 million research and development center in Shanghai, the company announced.

The center will initially focus on healthcare needs in China, where the drug market could double to $25 billion by 2010, according to a report by The Boston Consulting Group.

The Shanghai center will be Novartis' eighth in the world. A start-up facility will open on the site in May 2007, with the permanent facility expected to open in July 2007. Most of the approximately 400 scientists will be culled from Shanghai's pharmaceutical research institutions, Novartis said in its Nov. 6 announcement.

The availability of "the best and the brightest" medical researchers in Shanghai was a main factor in choosing the facility's location, Mark Fishman, president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, said.

Daniel Vasella, Novartis' CEO, emphasized China's growing healthcare needs and said the Shanghai facility could become a global center for advancements in biomedicine. Initial research at the center will focus on infectious causes of cancer prevalent in China, especially the hepatitis virus. About one-third of all people infected with hepatitis B are in China, and the virus kills an estimated 300,000 people in the country each year, according to Novartis.