Pharmaceuticals sales growth in China will continue to outstrip Europe and the US despite the economic slowdown on the mainland, downward pressure on drug prices and compliance challenges following the GlaxoSmithKline corruption scandal, according to the head of Swiss pharma group Novartis.

“China has the potential over the next 10 years to become a major force in global pharma,” Joe Jimenez, chief executive, told the Financial Times. He was speaking on the eve of the company’s opening of a $1bn global research and development campus in Shanghai — its third global facility alongside R&D centres in Basel and Cambridge, Massachusetts. “China’s going to become very important in R&D in this industry, not in the short term but over the long term,” he said.

The industry has seen a slowdown in China sales growth, falling from double to single digits, “but compare that to how the US or western Europe is growing at maybe 2 to 3 per cent,” he said.