The beginning of the year 2020 is marked by a groundbreaking event in drug development in China.A first-in-class drug for Alzheimers disease (AD),GV-971,received conditional approval by the China Food and Drug Administration for the Chinese market.China now has at least 10 million patients with diagnosed AD,afflicting almost one-third of the population aged 90-94 years.There is increasing demand for new AD drugs,as the societal burden caused by this devastating disease is becoming a major healthcare issue in all aging societies.This urgency is reflected by the conditional approval of the drug,a widely used method by drug regulatoryagencies in advanced countries to expedite promising new medicines to the market and facilitate early patient access,before long-term assessment of the treatment is available.