Unmet Talent Needs for Global Innovation in China

The Chinese healthcare and life sciences sector is booming

In China, the domestic healthcare and life sciences sector has experienced unprecedented growth in the last five years in terms of investment, innovation acceleration and business expansion. Just some 15 years ago, the Chinese domestic pharmaceutical sector was focusing on generic drugs - replicating the success of off-patent global drugs and driving commercial success. In recent years, it has changed to pharma innovation, therapies and breakthrough advancement ‘in China, for China’ to most recently, ‘in China, for Global.’ To name a few examples to illustrate the shift, recently we have seen Eli Lilly in a licensing agreement regarding a pre-clinical asset from Fosun pharma, and among the Global List of the Top 7 Biotech IPOs in 2020 – six were Chinese biotech companies raising a total of over 2.7B USD. And from we know of the market, we should expect more exciting news in 2021. This results in talent mobility from MNC Pharma to Domestic players. According to PageGroup Talent Healthcare Survey 2020, conducted among senior leaders with over 15 years of industry experience, over 80% of our respondents are considering joining a domestic company in the healthcare field.

Already potentially the biggest healthcare market, China is now set to become one of the key drivers for global pharmaceutical innovation. This is driven by favorable government policies towards the Healthcare sector and abundance of capital market investment resources. This rapid development has resulted in talent gaps and jobs emerging that have never existed in China before. Coupled with the rapid augmentation of new technologies, such as gene and cell therapy, mRNA vaccine etc., this has led to deeply unmet talent needs in China’s healthcare and life sciences market. This is especially relevant for drug discovery, clinical development, CMC and the biomanufacturing scope. Thus, for some jobs, the global talent pool is a major source of candidates, and mobility is essential.

When it comes to the Chinese pharma and biotech market, I have noticed several trends, specifically in the healthcare and life sciences sector:

• Overseas Chinese with long-time careers abroad are coming home to join fast growing innovation within the biotech sector, and companies are preferentially hiring candidates with a Chinese background to ensure a cultural fit.
• Senior-level talents locally and globally are moving from multinational pharma, where they reach a career ceiling, to a more dynamic environment of domestic pharma and biotech.
• The contracting model is relatively new in China, so temp assignments are still subject to heavy regulations from authorities and still get skepticism from the candidate market.
• Thanks to efficient government policies, China was minimally impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020. Employees were back to offices from April-May at full capacity. However, some of the multinationals adopted flexible working arrangements following their global policies.

When it comes to internal talent mobility - cross-functional mobility within the company - we have seen such examples in the pharma and biotech sector here in China, but more with middle to senior level roles. Possible transition happens between research and business development or the sales and marketing function for example. However, as the healthcare and life sciences sector is highly science and technology driven, some types of jobs are being created following business scale up (the company moving from the clinical to market stage) and industry development (launching a cell therapy line.) These roles cannot be filled by internal mobility, so hires must come from outside the market.

For overseas Chinese talents – especially for those who moved to the US in the late 80s or early 90s and have been developing their careers in big multinational pharma or leading academia institutions – moving back to China in a senior leadership role equates to new career prospects, going from an employee to a business leader and entrepreneur, or taking on a bigger role with the multinational team here. Another important factor for this type of move would be a passion to join the ‘innovation in China for Global’ trend.

A candidate-driven biotech market

The exciting Chinese biotech industry is lacking talent for innovative therapies. Due to gaps in the domestic training system and lack of qualified talents based in China for new types of therapies, our clients are reaching out to overseas Chinese talents to close the gap.

As a result, China’s healthcare and life sciences sector is a highly candidate-driven market. Companies wishing to attract high-caliber talents both locally and abroad are offering competitive compensation packages. An attractive cash and equity offer acts as an important incentive for professionals to join the biotech industry.

For our candidate pool, it is an exciting setting for any talent looking to join the sector, however, it is also including certain unseen risks and challenges. In our daily practice, we focus not only on checking boxes for the job description with a candidate’s CV or aligning industry level compensation, but much more on assuring the culture fit with the future employer.

As for the talents making a first move from established pharma to the biotech industry, we are putting extra effort to provide professional guidance on understanding the equity part of the package, evaluating long-term stability of the biotech start-up, and analysing values and culture fit with the founding team and style of the leading investor. This is especially relevant for scientific and medical background talents whose value system is different from other professionals.

For our clients, this emphasizes the importance of engaging with a trusted professional, who will act as an extension of the business team and represent the business and employer’s brand correctly in the highly competitive market. In addition, a recruitment partner should be able to explain the company’s story and future goals, distinguish its pipeline from competitors, and motivate the right candidate to fit.

Return to the motherland

Compared to 5 or 10 years ago, now pharma and local biotech companies give preference to Chinese candidates, or candidates with a Chinese background – as language ability and understanding of local culture are becoming more important to developing the Chinese biotech and pharma market.

One big trend in the last 5 years has been the return of Chinese peope living overseas to drive local innovation: they are moving back to China for leadership roles in the fast-growing healthcare sector bringing their global expertise with them. This trend is especially relevant for such roles as Chief Science Officer or Chief Medical Officer, considering our clients are developing new therapies ‘in China for Global,’ hiring senior leaders with global clinical and regulatory experience is critical for their business success.

It is important to admit that the industry is still facing challenges related to international relocation to China such as travel and visa restrictions. Even for a senior employee with a non-Chinese passport in the healthcare industry, whose necessity for business advancement is critical and evidenced, it may take up to 6 months to get all the documents prepared and get a work-visa issued, with a high rate of rejection. With the global effort to accelerate vaccinations, we are positively following the Chinese government’s step-by-step relaxation rules for incoming business travel. As an interim solution, some of our clients hire remotely for functions like Clinical Development, Regulatory, and Business Development with a commitment to relocate once the borders are open.

Change is coming

Despite challenges in global mobility caused by the COVID-19 travel restrictions, I suggest that candidates interested in careers in China network with qualified healthcare-dedicated recruiters with strong expertise in that area. Mobility to China has never looked better with its highly advanced industry and multitude of opportunities. Sooner or later, the restrictions will be lifted, and it’s important to have good insights from a trusted recruitment partner to find the right opportunities in advance. For junior and middle level talents: my advice is to accumulate experience and a strong professional foundation with global multinationals first before moving into fast growing biotech.

Because China’s healthcare market is talent driven - we physically have fewer candidates than jobs open – clients need to cooperate and compromise on some of the requirements for hard-to-find talents. Clients would do well to provide flexible solutions to engage suitable candidates coming back to China from living overseas while it is still hard to enter China due to COVID-19 restrictions.

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