Biotech goes global as Asia gets connected with the U.S. and Europe

If there's one thing biotech execs like to do more than anything else, it's planning a global strategy for rolling out an experimental drug. Up to now, that has largely meant studying the FDA for clues on drug approvals, considering the virtues of solo marketing (usually just a negotiating ploy in licensing talks) or co-promoting in the U.S., followed by a partnership deal for Europe and maybe Japan.

In the coming year, you can expect to see a lot more work being done on Asian deals, particularly for China. Through the course of this past year there have been growing signs of this global evolution. More Chinese companies are on the lookout for drugs that can be in-licensed, and more U.S./European companies are reaching out to some new players in the region. J&J ($JNJ) highlighted the change by placing one of its global innovation centers in Shanghai.

In the meantime, companies like Takeda and Astellas are doing more than ever to build a worldwide network of their own. R&D operations are being tasked with assessing all opportunities, and that means that it will be more important than ever to understand how these international development strategies are being crafted.

At the beginning of this year, FierceBiotech stepped up with a new EuroBiotech Report to go deeper into the companies operating in the U.K., France, Sweden and elsewhere on the continent as we built a network of correspondents around the world. In 2015 we're going to take that another step forward with a new twice-weekly report on the Asian biopharma scene, exploring events in China, Japan, India, Korea, Australia and the entire Pacific Rim. -- John Carroll