DIABETES is a serious problem in China and it is getting worse. While J. P. Garnier, the chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), was in London in September for a meeting with Tony Blair, he received an invitation to meet the Chinese Health Minister, who was in a delegation that included Wen Jiabao, the Premier.

Mr Garnier assumed that his conversation would involve bird flu, but both of the Chinese officials wanted to discuss diabetes. A chronic condition marked by elevated levels of sugar in the blood, diabetes is growing faster in sheer numbers in China than anywhere else in the world, and Western drugs companies are recognising a huge opportunity to deepen their relationship with the world’s most populous country.

Of the 1.3 billion Chinese, 35 million to 40 million are believed to be suffering from the disease, representing 20 per cent of the global total. By 2030 the number of Chinese sufferers will have grown to an estimated 60 million to 70 million.

“It’s an unfolding epidemic,” Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, the chief science officer at Novo Nordisk, the world’s biggest manufacturer of insulin, said. “The crisis is being fuelled by fundamental social changes, as more Chinese migrate to urban areas and adopt Western diets and lifestyles.”

Most new cases entail type 2 diabetes, the kind that is associated with obesity and a lack of exercise. To compound the problem, the Asian ethnic group is particularly susceptible to the condition. At present China is ill-equipped to deal with diabetes, and the disease is posing a serious threat to the country’s healthcare system and booming economy.

Many Chinese use traditional herbal medicines to treat the condition, but the country’s £130 million market for Western-style diabetes drugs, including injectable insulin and anti-diabetic tablets, grew by 31 per cent last year.

“Only one third [of those who have diabetes] have been diagnosed and, of those, only half are being treated — around five million people,” Dr Thomsen said. Novo Nordisk, which has the biggest share of any foreign company in the £50 million Chinese insulin market, is working with Beijing to train 60,000 doctors to diagnose and treat diabetes. The company has 1,000 employees in China, including 500 sales representatives.

Eli Lilly, of the US, Sanofi Aventis, of France, Bayer, of Germany, and GSK are also key players the Chinese insulin market, which is growing at an estimated 43 per cent a year in value terms.

“People think of diabetes as just a rich country’s problem, but the situation in China shows this is unrealistic,” said a spokeswoman for GSK, which has more than 2,000 employees in China. She noted that the Chinese market presented big challenges as well as big opportunities. Weak intellectual property laws make it easy for domestic manufacturers to knock out low-cost versions of patented Western products.

KEY PLAYERS

Novo Nordisk: produces insulins such as Novolin and Levemir

Eli Lilly: insulins such as Humulin plus other drugs such as Actos and Byetta

GlaxoSmithKline: Avandia, an oral antidiabetic tablet

Bayer: produces Glucobay, an oral antidiabetic drug

Wanbang Biochemical Pharm: makes generic insulin

Tonghua Dongbao: makes generic insulin

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