Internationalization Strategies of Chinese Pharmaceutical Firms

Abstract

Chinese pharmaceutical market value is about USD 110 billion in 2009, and it has become the world’s second largest market. Chinese pharmaceutical firms are becoming a growing player in global pharmaceutical chains. In this paper, sample firms are selected and surveyed with a focus on effective internationalization strategies and paths, through an empirical research, this paper summarizes the internationalization of Chinese pharmaceutical firms, and finds the effective strategies of international market entry are product upgrading along the industrial chains, international certification and cooperation, outsourcing and licensing, and other paths of overseas expansion. The implication for pharmaceutical firms in emerging market is to choose the suitable strategies based on own advantages, learn from the experience of other emerging market and domestic leading companies of internationalization, and gradually enter the standard market. This study not only provides international market entry strategies for the latecomers of Chinese pharmaceutical firms, but also enriches the internationalization theory of emerging market.