TY - JOUR AB - Purpose– This paper aims at discovering the opportunities and challenges for China's pharmaceutical industry (pharma) in technological, management and products innovation and thinking of the strategies for the industrial development based on thinking for high‐tech to create the future.Design/methodology/approach– The study is primarily based on the literature review, data collection and interviews in varied research institutions, colleges as well as corporations. The literature review pays close attention to pharmaceutical industry and management. And the interviews took place in person, by telephone and via face‐to‐face conversations. By means of studying on the resulting data, this archive develops somewhat policy implications which can probably contribute to renew the competitiveness of China's pharmaceutical industry in innovation.Findings– The critical shortages and the difficulties of China's pharmaceutical industry for development have been deeply discussed in this study, such as outdated healthcare system, controversial intellectual property regulation, and unconfident data system, which can handicap China's innovation.Originality/value– This paper presents a systematic analysis of China's pharma, through addressing most key aspects, which is committed to driving incentives towards genuine innovation, and to sharing the potential competitive market. The findings of the dynamic health innovation system and the policy implications should be an original comprehensive understanding, all of which might be of interests to China's scholars, government officials and company practicing managers. VL - 4 IS - 2 SN - 1756-1418 DO - 10.1108/17561411211235721 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/17561411211235721 AU - Huang Shufang PY - 2012 Y1 - 2012/01/01 TI - How can innovation create the future in a catching‐up economy? Focusing on China's pharmaceutical industry T2 - Journal of Knowledge-based Innovation in China PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 118 EP - 131 Y2 - 2024/04/23 ER -