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Journey East: How Chinese Returnees Build Global-Bound Biopharmas

From Money To Talent To Collaboration, Challenges Keep Coming

 
• By Brian Yang

As Chinese returnees transform their startups to fully-fledged biopharma operations with a full product lineup and the global market in sight, the journey has been filled with challenges. Based on interviews and on-the-ground reporting, this new series takes a closer look at several companies' experiences.

Business uncertainty and risk showing a winding road high above the clouds showing the concept of danger and challenges faced in business and the corporate world of finance and financial services.
CHINESE BIOTECH TO BIOPHARMA JOURNEY FILLED WITH CHALLENGES • Source: Shutterstock

After spending eight years with Merck & Co., Inc. in the US as a senior researcher, Zhongru Gan felt he was ready to start something new. In 1994, Gan founded a small biotech, Gantech Pharma, in the US but the next year returned to China knowing there was an acute need for high-level life science researchers like himself.

The first thing he did upon returning was collaborate with his classmate from Peking University, Yikui Lee, then CEO of...

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