Is China ready for a revolution in cancer therapy?

As China’s government has begun covering new cancer therapies developed in the U.S. and approving knockoffs developed locally, there's beengrowing excitement about the potential of these drugs to help patients there — and to generate big money for American drug makers. But as STAT's Rebecca Robbins reports, those dreams are dependent on China making progress in a crucial area: detecting tumors and then profiling them.

Right now, there are challenges. Among them: China has too few pathologists. Chinese cancer patients get diagnosed too late. And the government’s single-payer health system won’t cover many key tests, putting them out of the reach of many lower-income patients. In other words, if patients aren't having advanced testing on their tumors, there's little chance to know which targeted therapies may benefit them.

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