Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is hoping for dramatically increased sales and profits in Asia.

The increasing demand in China for diabetes drugs is fueling a significant portion of this growth. Specifically, Eli Lilly anticipates that revenues in China will grow 500% by the year 2015, to nearly $1 billion.

The company hopes the growth in sales of its drugs in Asia will help mitigate the anticipated losses in sales of drugs that will lose their U.S. patent protection over the next several years.

Additionally, according to Lorenzo Tallarigo, president of international operations, Eli Lilly is also considering to outsource their Asian manufacturing in India.

“No doubt India has great capability when it comes to manufacturing,” Tallarigo said. “We don’t have anything concrete to discuss but that is definitely something we’re going to look at.”

Pharmaceutical companies are now looking to test their upcoming blockbuster drugs in Asia. According to drug industry experts, this will shorten the time it takes for new pharmaceutical drugs to be available for sale in the U.S. market.

Because of dramatically lower costs in Asia, and because there are much larger populations there, drug manufacturers can speed up the whole drug-approval process. A report by AT Kearney, a management consulting firm, suggests that clinical trials in China can cost half of what a trial would cost in the United States.

According to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development in Boston, the number of pharmaceutical companies that conduct clinical trials overseas increased to almost 1,800 last year, up from 956 in 1997.

Also, 86% of clinical trials were done in U.S. in 1997; that figure has now dropped to 57%… and 30% of total clinical trials are now performed in countries other than Europe and the U.S.

Additionally, the FDA is looking to increase the number of drugs it approves. Among potential blockbuster drugs to receive approval next year is the diabetes drug Galvus, manufactured by Novartis.

However, despite the potential savings, many industry experts worry that these new cost-saving measures could put U.S. consumers at increased health risks.

“There is concern among physicians over whether the clinical data gathered overseas can be generalized to patients in the U.S.” says Ken Getz, a research fellow at the Tufts Center for Drug Development.

“There will be greater discussion about whether a guideline should be created that restricts the proportion of patients abroad tested for drugs that will be introduced on the U.S. market.”