SHANGHAI — Donkey meat with garlic juice and deep-fried duck bills aren't Dajun Yang's favorite fare. But while accompanying two U.S. colleagues on a recent trip to Beijing, he made sure they were exposed to cuisine they couldn't find back home.
Culinary tour guide is just one of Yang's many unofficial jobs. As the head of the China subsidiary of San Diego-based Ascenta Therapeutics Inc., Yang also is responsible for staffing the company's new lab in Shanghai, vetting animal-testing facilities and helping colleagues navigate China's regulatory jungle.
Yang's ability to bridge the two cultures is crucial to Ascenta's big gamble: creating a new breed of biotech start-up that marries U.S. and Chinese scientific talent with China's cheap labor and resources. The firm is using technology licensed from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan, where Yang and Ascenta co-founder Shaomeng Wang, both natives of China, conduct their research.
Ascenta is betting that its China subsidiary, which employs 20 scientists working for a fraction of what they would be paid in the United States, will drastically reduce the price tag -- and time -- of bringing its promising cancer-fighting medicines to market. Investors apparently agree. In April, the company announced it had raised $50 million, bringing its total funding to $85.5 million.
If Ascenta succeeds, biotech experts predict it could chart a new path for global drug development, helping China in its bid to leapfrog India and Eastern Europe, the current favorites for drug research outsourcing.
Ascenta is "essentially leveraging the best that both countries have to offer," said Greg Scott, a San Diego investor and editor of industry newsletter ChinaBio Today, who recently opened an office in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park.
The outsourcing of global drug development is risky. China's drug industry, long dominated by production of herbal and traditional medicines and generic drugs, is in the early stages of transitioning to a Western-style pharmaceutical system.
Eager to boost the credibility of its fledgling drug industry, the Chinese government has launched a major overhaul of the country's State Food and Drug Administration.
This week, the Chinese government sentenced the former head of the administration to death for reportedly taking bribes from companies trying to get approval for their drugs. During his tenure, dozens of Chinese died after ingesting fake or dangerous medicine.
