On average, more than 11,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in China every day. That is almost eight patients per minute. Dietary changes, smoking habits, and other lifestyle factors are also adding significant disease burdens. Although more Western lifestyles combined with better overall health has the positive effect of life expectancies improving, associated lifestyle illnesses – such as diabetes, stroke, and heart disease – are on the rise. In only a few decades, China has undergone substantial economic changes, but not without significant additional health and cost burdens.
The changing disease profiles, along with the rapid economic growth in China, pose a challenge for the healthcare system and has increased the demand for new and more complex treatments. Both global pharmaceutical companies and local manufacturers have caught up on this need, and one example of this is the large increase in the number of oncology trials being conducted in China.
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