US-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company announced on Tuesday the establishment of a diabetes research center in Shanghai and the hiring of 100 scientific and support staff, most of whom will be domestic hires.

The center will officially open in the second half of 2011, said Jan Lundberg, executive vice-president of Science and Technology of Lilly and president of Lilly Research Laboratories.

It aims to meet China's growing demand for innovative diabetes medicine that suits local patients.

"This center will complement our existing network of collaborations in China and also will enable us to further gain the insights of China's talented scientists," he said.

The company already has an R&D facility in Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park, Shanghai.

In 2003, Lilly started cooperating with Shanghai ChemExplorer Co Ltd, a local medical R&D outsourcing company.

The two sides also set up PharmaExplorer and BioExplorer, providing exclusive services for Lilly.

According to a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, about 92 million Chinese people (around 10 percent of the nation's adult population), have diabetes and the number of patients is expected to increase in the next decade.

"Lilly's presence in China spans every aspect of our business, from R&D to manufacturing to sales to marketing," said Jacques Tapiero, senior vice-president of Lilly and president of Lilly's Emerging Market Business Area.

He added that the drugmaker will focus not only on first-tier cities but also on second and third-tier cities where the number of diabetes patients is also increasing fast.

Lilly entered China in 1993 with operations and research facilities in Shanghai. According to Eric Baclet, president of Lilly China, Lilly's payroll in China doubled during the past two years to 3,000.

It also established a venture capital fund in 2007 called Lilly Asian Ventures to invest in China's biopharmaceutical industry.

According to Tapiero, given the growing demand for diabetes medicine in China, Lilly plans to surpass the 24-25 percent average annual growth of the nation's pharmaceutical market.

(China Daily November 4, 2010)