Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Saul's avatar

A very interesting article. In the context of whether China has the capability for genuine innovation, it should be noted that western Biopharma companies have been beating a path to Chinese companies (in reality a stampede) to uncover new drugs of late. In 2024 such in-licensing of assets (from China) constituted around one third of total in-licensed drugs (which is significant). To emphasize, these are novel drugs and not generics or copies of western drugs. Thus, I would say that China is unquestionably a source of innovation.

Expand full comment
Grant Kettering's avatar

Great great article.

One aspect of the DeepSeek story I've not yet seen reported is DeepSeek as an act of national philanthropy, basically Liang Wenfeng giving back to the nation after the crackdown on the antisocial success of his trading business.

If this is in fact part of his motivation and thinking, despite his organization's not being a typical state champion and apparently not adopting typical organizational practices, there is an interesting nationalist dimension here.

Expand full comment
13 more comments...

No posts