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China, R&D Haven? by Juan Francisco Pérez-Vargas
It all started with an egg. Inside that egg was P’an-Ku, who hacked his way out of the shell and cleaved the earth from the sky, and yin from yang, with his bare hands, creating the Universe. His children, Nüwa and Fuxi, created the human race and invented hunting and writing. Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, virtually invented civilization, with innovations ranging from agriculture to the calendar, and, of all things, soccer (this is completely factual: the first mention of this sport is contained in the Zhan Guo Ze, a military and political maneuvering text from the 5th Century BCE). Following him came Shennong, the Divine Peasant. Back in those days, people’s diets consisted of what amounted to raw shellfish, herbs, fruits of dubious origin, and river water. Needless to say, people spent most of the time collectively sick to their stomachs, and Shennong thus took on the task of teaching people which fruits to gather, which fruits to avoid and —most importantly— which ones possessed medicinal qualities. China’s pharmaceutical industry is, to say the least, unusual. The country represents 20% of the world’s total population, but its pharma market represents barely1.5% of the global market. The 1980s marked the collapse of the Rural Cooperative Medical System (RCMS), an innovative,
