On May 5, 2017, a series of articles jointly written by China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association (PhIRDA) and Nature magazine themed "from imitation to innovation" systematically demonstrated the remarkable achievements of Chinese medicine from imitation to innovation in the past decade. It is expected to serve as a bridge to communicate with the world and let the world know more about China, further promoting the development and cooperation of global pharmaceutical innovation.

The journal started with five aspects including China's pharmaceutical innovation policy drive, pharmaceutical fundamental research, innovative drug platform construction, clinical research, etc., which systematically demonstrated China’s layout in areas of innovative drugs R&D and complete industrial chain of technological innovation guided and supported by national innovation-driven strategies implemented in recent years, particularly by national science and technology major project of “major new medicine development”. Investment in R&D of drug innovation and number of patents for invention were significantly increased, and breakthroughs regarding some key technological bottlenecks in drug R&D have been made. Pharmaceutical fundamental research and professional technology platform construction have significant progressed. Landmark self-developed innovative drugs with world standard that filled clinical gap have been approved to be sold on market, providing new impetus and ideas in promoting the innovation and transformation of pharmaceutical industry and the innovation-oriented country construction.

Chidamide and its R&D team were introduced in the articles. Chidamide, a new globally patented small molecule entity independently developed by Chipscreen Biosciences Co., Ltd., is targeted for the treatment of recurrent and refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL), which has been approved for sale by China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) at the end of 2014. Meanwhile, clinical trials in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan are also underway. Founded by US returnees, Chipscreen Biosciences Co., Ltd. specializes in small-molecule drug research and development drawing on self-constructed integrated drug discovery and early evaluation system based on chemical genomics. By building a team with expertise in R&D and management of innovative drug with new chemical structures, the company has been fully equipped with capacities ranging from drug targets research to clinical candidate drug development and industrialization.

Link of original text:

https://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/collections/npgpublications/phirda/phirda.pdf