U.S. companies seeking to conduct clinical trials of new drugs and medical devices, Dr. R. Stephen Porter of Tennessee says China provides a lower-cost setting in which jobs can be accomplished more quickly, according to The Tennessean.

Porter’s consulting company, Dragon Bio-Consultants, helps U.S. drug companies license their products in China; he also helps Chinese companies license their products in the U.S. by assisting with FDA processes.

Porter partners with Chinese companies that can take new drugs through development, including testings. As one example of time efficiency, he cites a U.S. company that approved five drug compounds for human study in two years in China, in contrast to that of the U.S. pharma industry where one compound takes eight years to develop. 

The U.S. company paid $4 million in contract fees for the work done in China while pharmaceutical processes, on average, can cost $25 million to be done in the U.S.

“That’s leveraging time and costs,” he said. “That’s what China is all about— half the money, twice the productivity and 10 times the value. That’s why I’m in China. They have more than two trillion of our dollars they want to invest in pharmaceuticals and health care, and they want to access both the Chinese and the Western market.”