A pharmaceutical company in Yichang said its rapid development since its establishment in 2001 comes from its dedication to intellectual property management.

"Of all industries, the pharmaceutical industry is the most closely associated with intellectual property protection," said Li Jie, chairman of Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceutical Co.

The company is a State-designated manufacturer of and a research and development base for narcotic analgesics.

It has three production bases covering a total area of 120 hectares, including a manufacturing and export base that is still under construction in Yichang Biological Industry Park.

Some of the company's pharmaceuticals produced by its six production lines have been exported to the United States, Europe and Africa.

"Pharmaceutical companies must rely on patented products to secure markets. Research of a new drug takes a very long period, about 10 to 15 years, and also may cost hundreds of millions of yuan, so systematic intellectual property management and protection is crucial to pharmaceutical companies," Li said.

In 2009, the company established a department to handle intellectual property rights and created an intellectual property system to increase its number of patent applications and spur innovation.

Humanwell Pharmaceutical has focused on developing a series of products with proprietary technologies and has set up cooperative partnerships with many universities nationwide to drive innovation. Its partners include Sichuan University, China Pharmaceutical University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Its products have a 62 percent share of the domestic narcotic market.

Over the past five years, it has secured technical cooperation measures with foreign companies to "inject new force into its patent commercialization", Li said.

It recently acquired the license for a narcotic analgesic from Paion UK Ltd, a European pharmaceutical company, to develop and commercialize it in China.

In recent years Humanwell has grown steadily in the number of its patent and trademark applications.

It currently has 117 trademarks, including 13 registered overseas in countries such as the US, Germany, Canada, India and Chile. It also has 62 patent applications, 45 of which were approved.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn

Humanwell Pharmaceutical technicians at a company laboratory.