HONG KONG – South Korea's Samsung Bioepis Co. Ltd. got the first EU approval for biosimilar etanercept, a win that opens up the European market for a company that is working to become a global top-tier biosimilar maker.

NEW DELHI – Pharmaceutical manufacturers and policy makers in India are growing increasingly concerned about the country's dependence on China as the single source for bulk drugs and intermediary products that are necessary to the production of a wide range of products.

HONG KONG – As part of an ongoing process of strengthening the country's drug regulatory structure, the CFDA is looking to end region-to-region variation in the strength of clinical trial oversight.

HONG KONG — Chinese researchers have discovered that an antifungal drug can efficiently block bacterial virulence due to Staphylococcus aureus infections, including those caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains of the bacterium, in mouse models of infection, they reported in the Jan. 18, 2015, edition of Nature Chemical Biology.

HONG KONG – Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., looking to enter the biosimilar game, reported positive results from a co-developed drug that could become the country's first biosimilar etanercept.

NEW DELHI – India plans to set up a new National Centre for Drug Discovery from Natural Products and strengthen its infrastructure and regulatory support for drugs trials, all part of its second national biotechnology research strategy unveiled recently.

SHANGHAI – Canbridge Life Sciences Inc. has confirmed the existence of ligand CD95 in Chinese glioblastoma patients after completing the first such biomarker study of its kind on the mainland. The study demonstrated a high degree of CD95 ligand expression consistency between geographically diverse Chinese and Western glioblastoma multiforme patients.

SAN FRANCISCO – While many of China's biopharmaceutical company executives flew across the Pacific for the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, they kicked off the week with the Bayhelix 13th Annual Conference, a confab of China's best and brightest. The group's founding members were ambitious China-born scientists and managers working in the U.S. looking for camaraderie. Today, they are leaders in the field, heading up their own well-financed biopharma, med tech, service and investment companies.

HONG KONG – Looking to further its innovative efforts in drug development, pharma major Johnson & Johnson has partnered with Chinese liver disease expert Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. (CTTQ), as well as a score of other external companies.