Not a pleasant scenario to contemplate, is it? But with all those product recalls - Mattel toys and Nokia cell phones, for instance - and the recent execution of the former head of China’s Food and Drug Administration, drugmakers have to be careful about manufacturing in China. Of course, the huge market, the beachhead into Asia and the cheap labor isn’t stopping anyone, either.

“The tide towards production in pan-Asia is something that’s not going to stop,” Dan Bartholomew, a senior managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, tells CNNMoney.com. “It’s just a question of the measures that are put in place to do it the right way.”

Who’s investing and expanding in China? Merck, Wyeth, Lilly, Schering-Plough, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Biomed and Genentech. AstraZeneca recently announced a $100 million investment there. Of course, it’s not a surprise. A new PricewaterhouseCoopers report notes that Asia is becoming pharma’s new center of gravity. In its survey, the firm found that even intellectual property concerns are minmized. Still, the risks are high.

“All it will take is one contaminated batch of drugs from China and your pharma company will have really big problems,” Les Funtleyder, a pharma analyst at Miller Tabak, tells CNNMoney. “Given the skepticism around China, I’m not sure that a production facility in the continent to ship back here is worth doing.”