After a 40-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, I officially retire today, June 1, 2026. With my retirement, WiCON International Group LLC, along with its last remaining core business, WiCON|Pharma China, will also cease operations.

In early 1986, while I was an undergraduate student in London, I received a call from Dr. Philip Brown of PJB Publications, publisher of the renowned SCRIP – World Pharmaceutical News. Philip had just returned from Beijing, where he had met my father, an older fellow alumnus from the School of Pharmacy at the University of London. He kindly offered me an opportunity to learn the trade and work as a freelance correspondent covering Chinese pharmaceutical news for SCRIP. That single phone call ultimately opened the door to my 40-year career in the pharmaceutical industry.

Even before then, I had been no stranger to the industry. I grew up in a family with generations of pharmaceutical ties, beginning with my grandfather, who had been a minority owner and manager of what was then the largest traditional Chinese pharmacy in Nanjing, the former capital of the Republic of China.

After completing my studies in the U.K., I returned briefly to China and, in 1987, accepted my first real pharmaceutical position as Assistant to the General Manager of Beijing Ciba-Geigy Pharma — the organization that would eventually evolve into today's Novartis China. At the time, the company consisted of only around ten employees, primarily focused on overseeing construction of its first manufacturing facility in China, as well as product registration and market planning. By 2025, China represented approximately 6%–8% of Novartis' global pharmaceutical sales, translating into roughly US$4 billion in annual revenue.

After leaving Beijing Ciba-Geigy a year later, I returned to England to complete my MBA at the University of Exeter. In 1989, I moved to the United States, beginning a new chapter in my life.

In 1991, WiCON International was founded in New Jersey and Beijing to provide strategic consulting and competitive intelligence services to international pharmaceutical and healthcare companies entering and developing in the Chinese market. During the 1990s, WiCON was fortunate to play a meaningful role in helping numerous multinational pharmaceutical companies and leading international generic drug firms establish and expand their early presence in China.

At the same time, I co-founded several Chinese generic pharmaceutical companies. By 2006, however, I decided to wind them down as the market environment had become increasingly chaotic and price competition so intense that manufacturing even standard-quality generic medicines at a reasonable profit was no longer sustainable. Producing substandard drugs — a problem that has unfortunately become more widespread in China's generic drug sector since then — was simply never an option for me.

That same year, I decided to refocus the business on strategic advisory services for multinational companies active in China, as well as on WiCON|Pharma China, an English-language business publication covering China's pharmaceutical industry. Over the years, it was subscribed to by most multinational pharmaceutical companies, leading CROs, investment banks, consulting firms, industry associations, and foreign government agencies with interests in China's healthcare sector. Earlier on, WiCON also co-published IMS China Update, a newsletter well known among many pioneers of multinational pharmaceutical business development in China.

Our consulting business and information services achieved considerable success and earned meaningful recognition within the industry. Yet throughout the years, I consistently resisted the temptations of expansion. While this decision helped preserve the quality, independence, and integrity of our services — and also allowed me to maintain a relatively balanced and relaxed personal lifestyle — it inevitably raised a difficult question: how to preserve the legacy of WiCON beyond myself.

Over the years, I made sincere efforts to identify and train a successor who could carry forward both the business and the aspirations behind it, but ultimately without success. We also received various acquisition and buyout proposals, and many long-time clients and friends generously introduced different opportunities and transition ideas. In the end, however, I chose a simpler path: a clean and definitive retirement. At this stage of life, avoiding future entanglements and preserving the quality and peace of personal life became more important to me than extending the business indefinitely.

Life is short, and these 40 years in the pharmaceutical industry have passed remarkably quickly. After witnessing so many rises, falls, transformations, and paradigm shifts within China's pharmaceutical sector, the time has finally come for me to refocus once again and say goodbye to the industry.

I grew up in residential compounds for pharmaceutical industry families, surrounded by research laboratories and the familiar scent of medicinal chemistry. I still vaguely remember my father taking me to his laboratory one Sunday before the Cultural Revolution. While he was busy working, I wandered off and somehow fell into a utility well — fortunately dry and not very deep. To this day, I am not entirely certain whether it truly happened or was simply an early childhood nightmare.

What is undeniably real, however, are the memories and shadows of the Cultural Revolution itself. Even at my age today, they still occasionally return to haunt me. Perhaps retirement, and stepping away from the industry that shaped so much of my life, may finally help bring complete peace to those memories.

Last but certainly not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of my clients, colleagues, and friends throughout the industry. Many of you have supported and stayed with me from the very beginning. Without your trust and friendship, neither I nor WiCON could have come this far.

I carry many fond memories of our conferences, meetings, conversations, and private gatherings over the decades, and I remain deeply grateful for the moments of friendship, life experiences, and wisdom you shared with me along the way.
I wish all of you and your families good health, happiness, and continued success.

So long, and farewell.

James Shen
President, WiCON International Group LLC
Publisher, WiCON|Pharma China