Plan aims to develop pharma into a pillar industry

Editor's note: China recently released a five-year plan for its pharmaceutical industry. People's Daily Overseas Edition spoke to Li Yan, a researcher of the Development Research Centre of the State Council, and Jiang Deyuan, president of the China Association for Medical Devices Industry, on the sector's development. Below are excerpts of the interviews. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

The plan aims to enhance the core competitiveness and international standing of China's pharmaceutical industry from 2026 to 2030, while driving systematic breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields during the period.

It comes at a time when China's pharmaceutical industry is rapidly moving beyond its traditional role as a major producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients and a large consumer market toward a new stage marked by the growing export of innovative drugs.

The plan has outlined ambitious targets, such as positioning China at the forefront of global biomedical research, development and application by 2030. The country expects the biomedical sector to rapidly evolve into a national pillar industry.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, rapid advances in global biomedicine technologies, a growing demand for international innovation partnerships among multinational pharmaceutical companies, improvements in China's multi-tiered healthcare security system, and steady progress in domestic innovation and research and development capabilities will create major opportunities for the industry.

The next five years will be critical for China's biomedicine industry to move from quantitative growth to qualitative transformation.

The plan outlines specific strategies for key areas, including innovation, priority products, cutting-edge technologies, advanced manufacturing processes and the development of competitive industrial clusters.

For example, the plan calls for the development of products such as bioresorbable stents and cardiac pacemakers with a controllable degradation rate, as well as high-end computed tomography scanners, magnetic resonance imaging systems, multimodal artificial intelligence pathology systems and other AI-assisted diagnostic products and their key components.

China is one of the world's key suppliers of medical consumables. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the focus should be on areas where China is already strong and on moving from scale to strength. Medical consumables need to become more sophisticated and intelligent, increasing their added value while maintaining cost advantages.

In vitro diagnostics should intensify efforts to develop core raw materials and key components, moving beyond following and replacing existing technologies toward original innovation. Rehabilitation equipment and wearable products should become more intelligent, personalized and suited to home use, enabling more products to move beyond hospitals into communities and households.

The five-year plan also outlined the development of specialized large language models and AI agents for the pharmaceutical sector, as well as the efforts to accelerate AI-driven transformation in pharmaceutical R&D and production management.

Breakthroughs in AI, life sciences, new energy and advanced materials are already reshaping the medical device industry. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, efforts should be made to bring AI into the entire industry chain and expand its application across R&D, manufacturing, diagnosis and treatment, and healthcare services.

China should also advance the development of national pilot platforms for AI applications in healthcare, providing a testing and commercialization environment for applications such as AI-assisted medical imaging and clinical decision support.