Novartis: China drug market may top $300bn by 2020

Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG expects growth in China’s pharmaceuticals market to accelerate as the nation’s health authorities expedite approvals for new medicines and increase reimbursement, Bloomberg reports.  The Chinese pharmaceutical market may exceed $300 billion in sales by 2020, Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez said in an interview in Geneva on Tuesday. The country is now the world’s second-biggest pharmaceutical market, behind the US. “They recognize they have a population that really wants to be part of getting access to health care and new medicines,” he said. “They’re starting to bring down those barriers.” While foreign companies have historically had to wait several years to bring treatments already approved in other countries into China, the country is speeding up its review of new medicines to combat increasing rates of diseases like cancer and hepatitis.