Objective: The Chinese healthcare industry has immense potential for innovation and requires competent publication professionals for global reach. Changes in regulatory landscape of China necessitates pharmaceutical industries to collaborate with medical professionals who are capable of keeping up with both changes in regulations and innovative medicine.
Methods: We initiated an online questionnaire-based survey via WeChat from August 3 to August 14, 2019 which focused on experience level, challenges, career development, and training requirements of survey participants.
Results: A total of 53 medical publication professionals participated in this survey. Contrary to global trends, 77% of participants had <5 years of professional experience in publication, although only 36% of participants had <5 years of experience in healthcare industry. In all, 63% of respondents spent <50% of their time in publication-related activities, contributing to <10 manuscripts per year. Their expertise in manuscripts spanned clinical studies (68%), post-marketing studies (62%), and reviews (38%). Poor research design and data quality, limited medical writing skill, and inefficient communication with authors were major challenges for developing high-quality publications. Awareness of good publication practices guidelines was high (49%) and 15% of respondents were Certified Medical Publication Professionals. Strategic publication planning (72%), industry trends (66%), and best practices (55%) were some of training requirements identified to increase competencies among respondents.
Conclusions: Although the Chinese medical publication professional industry is at a nascent stage, an attempt is being made to provide opportunities for its publication professionals to develop their competencies to match global standards.
Keywords: China; Cultural differences; medical publication profession; medical writers; pharmaceutical industry; training.