Hans Schmid, chairman; and Enrico Magnani, GM, of global cancer supportive care leader Helsinn Pharmaceuticals’ operations in China, share the Swiss company’s strategy in China, having entered in 2012; the milestone of launching their first product in China in November 2018 for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV); the importance they place on medical education in a market like China; and their business objectives for Helsinn China for the next few years.
Hans, perhaps you could start by sharing how Helsinn Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd (Helsinn China) decided to enter the China market back in 2012, considering the fact that Helsinn is a Swiss mid-cap that is only directly present in a few countries?
Hans Schmid (HS): Helsinn is a company that chooses its presence in foreign countries very carefully. Outside Switzerland and Ireland, where Helsinn manufactures finished products, we have a commercial sales and marketing organization in the US. In the rest of the world, we choose to work through trusted partners. China was already a very large pharmaceutical market in 2012, experiencing rapid growth and with expectations that China would become the 2nd largest pharma market globally after the US, which became reality in 2016. With the anticipated importance of the China pharmaceutical market, Helsinn wanted to bring its innovative pipeline of products in cancer and cancer supportive care to China.
From the very beginning Helsinn took a very long-term, step-by-step approach when it came to entering the China market.
