A hugely successful Chinese movie has brought China's pharmaceutical industry into the spotlight. What changes might happen?
Starting from June 30, the Chinese movie "Dying to Survive" became the social topic in China. The movie is based on a true story of how Chinese leukemia patients struggle to buy generic drugs from India because they couldn’t afford patented drugs.
Starring Xu Zheng, a famous Chinese director and actor, the movie got a rating of 8.9/10 on Chinese review website Douban – the fourth highest score for a domestically made movie. By July 13, the 116-minute movie has collected nearly 2 billion yuan (US$300 million) box office revenue within eight days.
It has dominated the social conversation not only because of its roller-coaster emotional ride from comedy in the first half to the tragedy in the second half but also because the affordability issue of Chinese patients and their families – it has never been so clearly presented to the public before the movie...
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