Share thisShanghai is the symbol of the Yin and Yang of modern China. Located at the estuary of the Yangtze River where it reaches the East China Sea, this historically and commercially significant port is China’s most modern and populous city, with close to 19 million permanent residents1. To the east of the Huangpu River, Pudong New District, an Open Economic Developmental Zone begun in 1992, is considered the “dragon head” of the entire country’s economic expansion. While sitting in traffic slowed or stopped by construction, one expects to hear that popular old show tune from when America was expanding every which way:
Everything's up to date in Kansas City
They gone about as fer as they can go
They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' orta grow2.
In practically no time, this new area of the ancient city has grown in every direction, and it keeps growing. The Oriental Pearl Television Tower (468m) surpassed Chicago’s Sears Tower (442m) in 1994 only to be dwarfed by the Shanghai World Financial Center (492m) four years later. On the ground, the Maglev speeds travelers to and from Pudong International Airport in minutes. This magnetic levitation train can achieve a top speed of 431 km/h (268 mph), making it the perfect conveyance for people in a hurry.
TIME IS MONEY
Doing business in Shanghai affords many savings, not the least of which is time. Savvy international travelers’ gain hours winging east and can return the day before they leave. Everyone seems confused about what day and time it is back home. Such disorientation is mild, however, compared with the constant brain buzz from all the contradictions and cultural conundrums faced by Western companies and organisations trying to gain a foothold in China.
In Shanghai, where competition and aggression inform the entrepreneurial spirit, time is money. That appeals to global pharmas driven by immense economic pressures to do more with less as fast as possible. Executives are racing across time zones to be the first to bring new drugs to market as well as to open up emerging markets throughout Asia.
According to Chloe Lin, Managing Partner of MODULAR R&D, a market research, consulting and project management company focused on drug and device development in China: “The benefits of developing drugs in China can be offset by great difficulties: a short development history; a maturing, thus fastchanging, regulatory system; an improving but still comparatively low level of quality standards in procedures and human resources; and a market and culture that requires a major adjustment of business mentality.” She predicts that “multinational pharmaceutical companies can overcome these difficulties over time by maintaining a large local presence in management, sales and marketing, government and medical affairs and R&D facilities. However, small- to medium-sized companies often lack the resources to quickly understand the Chinese market and to build a multidisciplinary management team on the ground that can support the complicated operations required for the long process of drug development.”