China’s $132 Billion Market Pushes Big Pharma Into Uncharted Territory

On the second floor of a hospital in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi, children sit in light green cubicles watching cartoons. Their mouths are covered by nebulizers, which administer medicines via a breathable mist. Nearby, their parents are engrossed in their smartphones, occasionally checking to see if their kids are inhaling properly through the mouthpiece.

An uncommonly serene place in Wuxi Children’s Hospital, which is teeming with agitated parents and crying toddlers, the room is one of roughly 15,000 pediatric nebulization centers that AstraZeneca Plc has built in China in partnership with local governments and medical device companies. The idea is to drive usage of the British drugmaker’s Pulmicort, an inhaled asthma drug, among Chinese kids whose families cannot afford to buy the device to use at home.