Big is relative

The market potential represented by China's population has been alluring for centuries. However, revenues are not necessarily related to population, and China's approval last week for BioChem Pharma Inc. 's lamivudine to treat chronic hepatitis B (HBV) may prove to illustrate the discrepancy.

BCHE (Laval, Quebec) said that of the 350 million chronic HBV carriers worldwide, 110 million are Chinese. Of these 110 million carriers, about 30 million are infected with actively replicating virus - the segment that would be treated with lamivudine...