Beijing, July 13 (EFE).- A surge in drug development and a shortage of laboratory primates have driven the price of research macaques in China to more than 200,000 yuan (about $29,500) each, as pharmaceutical companies compete for limited supplies.
«The monkeys are not only very expensive, but, more importantly, they are scarce,» Zhang Ming, head of research and development at a Chinese biopharmaceutical company, told the financial newspaper Yicai.
According to Zhang, the laboratory primate capacity of nearly all contract research organizations serving the pharmaceutical industry has already been fully booked for this year.
The number of clinical trials in China surpassed 5,000 for the first time in 2025, with more than half involving new drugs, according to data from the National Medical Products Administration cited by Yicai.
The price of research macaques has risen sharply over the past decade, increasing from about 7,000 yuan (around $1,050) in 2014 to 160,000 yuan (about $23,900) in June 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for biomedical research surged.
Prices later fell to 75,000 yuan (about $11,100) in May 2025 before recovering to around 100,000 yuan (about $14,700) in the second half of that year.
They have since doubled to more than 200,000 yuan.
China requires about 30,000 laboratory primates each year but faces a shortage of nearly 10,000, according to experts cited by Yicai.
They said the long breeding cycle for macaques makes it difficult to close the supply gap in the near term.
Industry representatives have called for a temporary easing of restrictions on macaque imports from Southeast Asia to help address the shortage.
Companies including WuXi AppTec, Joinn Laboratories, and Pharmaron have been acquiring breeding farms and developing their own facilities since 2018 to secure a stable supply of laboratory primates. EFE
aa-sk
