Drug company Novartis is to pump $1 billion into China over the next five years. Included in this plan is a move to turn the company’s existing research institute in Shanghai into the largest of its kind in the country

The expansion of the CNIBR in Shanghai will involve relocating the facility to a new campus, where researchers will focus on diseases that are highly prevalent in China, says Novartis. The number of researchers employed should increase from 160 to 1,000, making it the largest Novartis R&D centre after its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland and its Cambridge, USA facility.

“We are confident that our expanded investment in R&D will result in innovative therapies for patients in China and other countries nurtured by the growing scientific excellence in China,” says Daniel Vasella, chairman and CEO of Novartis (press release).

The investment is just the latest indication that pharma companies view China as vital to their future profitability, along with other rapidly developing nations such as India.

“I think it will be a signal of China’s rising importance in the pharmaceutical industry,” says Vasella (WSJ). “You have to ask yourself where do you need to be down the road, and clearly it is here.”