If China does not have a legal system to protect the intellectual property right (IPR) in medical and pharmacy industry, 60 percent of the newly introduced medicine will no longer exist, a senior official said Wednesday.

Zhang Qingkui, an official with the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), showed his worry at a pharmacy IPR summit forum opened here Tuesday.

To develop a new medicine usually costs 0.5 to 1 billion US dollars and 10 years on average, the information from the summit says, and among those new medicines show up in market, only three out of ten could survive.

"The IPR protection encourages the research and development of new medicines," said Ding Jinxi, the professor with the China Pharmaceutical University (CPU), "However, China's IPR protection in this industry is relatively weak, especially the education of it."

In a survey conducted by CPU in 22 pharmaceutical universities and institutions in east China's Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province and Shanghai shows that only two of them have set majors on medical IPR protection.

"Only by strengthening the IPR protection could the medical and pharmacy industry to develop," said Ding Jinxi.

The pharmacy IPR summit forum was sponsored by SFDA, vowing to improve people's awareness of IPR protection in the industry.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2005)