Biotech in China: Four Important Truths That Everyone Isn’t Talking About

Is it really the DeepSeek moment everyone keeps saying it is?

🩺 Thank you to everyone who read and shared my last Vital Signs post on the Five Biggest Myths in China’s Healthcare. Your thoughtful engagement and feedback has been so brilliant.

For this next essential explainer on key contexts and trends shaping health in China today, I turn my attention to the hottest topic out there right now: Biotech.

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In the past weeks, China's biotech industry has been capturing huge amounts of attention around the world. From the Wall Street Journal to the Economist, international media are hailing biotech as China’s next “DeepSeek moment” — a breakout signal that Chinese innovation is not only real but potentially global in reach.

And no wonder: there are plenty of recent examples of groundbreaking drugs, major acquisitions and billion-dollar collaborations. Take ivonescimab, the landmark immunotherapy drug developed by Chinese drugmaker Akeso, which recently outperformed Merck’s Keytruda, the world’s top-selling medicine, in Phase III trials for non-small cell lung cancer. Or the FDA's greenlight for HuidaGene’s first-in-class CRISPR RNA-editing therapy targeting macular degeneration: the first of its kind.

But, as is often the case with China, there’s much more to the story.

Catherine Thorbecke recently wrote in Bloomberg about how Western biases still cloud perceptions of Chinese innovation—even as Silicon Valley copies Chinese platforms (hello, Instagram Reels vs TikTok). The tech world’s stunned, disbelieving reaction to DeepSeek laid that bare: beneath the headlines is an enduring belief in Western exceptionalism, and a discomfort (and sometimes xenophobia) with the very idea that China could genuinely lead.

These same biases now shape how people are talking about Chinese biotech.

The breakthroughs are very real, and the pace is definitely accelerating. But attention doesn’t always equal understanding, especially when the hype gets loudest. It’s very much worth pausing to look more closely at what’s driving it, and to remind ourselves of the real dynamics happening on the ground.

This post is not an exhaustive list of stats or dry policy bullet points. Instead, I offer four essential truths below.

Each of these are shaped by my own understanding, professional and personal experiences, whether as a doctor, programme director for China’s drug regulators, policy advisor, or strategy consultant advising foreign MNCs and pharma clients.

I hope that my perspectives can provide you with a grounding check when trying to make sense of where China’s biotech sector is really heading.

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1. China's biotech is not new.

Myth: “China's biotech emergence is a recent development.”

Reality: China’s biotech boom is decades in the making, founded on long-term policy vision and deliberate infrastructure-building.

China’s biotech sector has been framed in Western coverage as an overnight phenomenon. But China had recognised its strategic importance as far back as the 1980s. During the early years of Reform and Opening-Up, Deng Xiaoping witnessed firsthand the stark contrast between China’s labour-intensive factories and the advanced capabilities of foreign industry that had begun to enter. He understood that China’s long-term economic resilience would depend upon capacity-building in emerging science and technology sectors.

In 1986, Deng launched the “863 Program”, an ambitious national high-tech research initiative that, for the first time in China, explicitly prioritised the field of biotechnology alongside IT and advanced manufacturing. This directed funding into genetic engineering, biologics and cell therapies, and laid crucial early foundations for talent, infrastructure and early commercialisation.

However, though the intention and aspiration was clear, progress remained slow. China still lacked the commercial and structural research ecosystem for advanced drug innovation. Domestic talent pools were thin, policy support was fragmented, and clinical trial regulation was inconsistent.

Much of the early biotech effort therefore focused on basic manufacturing, of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)—the building blocks of drugs—and China quickly scaled to become a leading global supplier. That dominance was starkly revealed in 2017, when an explosion at a Chinese factory producing the API for piperacillin-tazobactam, a widely used broad-spectrum antibiotic, triggered a global shortage.

At the time, I had just started working as a doctor in the UK, and I remember trying to google why every hospital in the country was suddenly short of Pip-Taz, as we called it, for patients presenting with severe infections — pneumonia, sepsis, febrile neutropenia — where time and antibiotic choice can be critical. China’s biotech footprint was already impacting patient lives in the UK and all around the world.

By 2015, with the launch of the landmark “Made in China 2025” initiative, biotech’s bottlenecks were taken seriously and tackled head-on: accelerating regulatory reform, incentivising returning talent, and expanding funding for R&D and early-stage companies. A year later, in 2016, the “Healthy China 2030” plan broadened the health systems lens: integrating biotech into a core part of improving population health and national resilience. Then, in 2017, the Priority Review and Approval Process began allowing accelerated regulations and market entry by sharply reducing approval timelines for innovative therapies.

All of this propelled the next, transformative decade, where China moved from producing APIs to innovating complex therapies. Companies like BeiGene, I-Mab and Innovent Biologics rose during this period, building strong pipelines, attracting international capital and pioneering global clinical trial strategies. National High-Tech Zones flourished in biotech hotspots like Shanghai, Suzhou and Shenzhen, providing grants and favourable tax regimes as well as thousands of km of dedicated real estate and subsidised infrastructure.

The pandemic further accelerated domestic capacity and global ambition, including for mRNA platform development and vaccine scale-up, and national policy continues to centre biotech as a strategic priority. The Two Sessions earlier this month further reaffirmed biotech as a national strategic asset (see my recent post). In China, that designation matters. It ensures continued access to policy levers, cross-sector integration, and long-term support. Biotech’s vibrant trajectory is most definitely set to continue.

Why it matters:

For industry leaders: Success in China requires more than capital. Long-term strategy, local alignment and the right relationships are all essential. Global playbooks rarely translate. The key, as ever, is to create and maintain local partnerships to leverage the right channels of influence.

For investors: China’s biotech sector is the product of deliberate, long-term planning. The commitment is real and growing. Recognising this will help identify the right entry points and anticipate future shifts.

For policy-makers: China’s biotech expansion needs to be factored into economic and geopolitical strategies. Understanding its top-down, policy-driven model is key to effective engagement, safeguarding standards and avoiding blind spots.

For researchers: China is now an indisputable core hub for biomedical research. Sustained engagement with its evolving ecosystem is essential for staying at the forefront of global science.

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2. China’s biotech innovation has moved far beyond copying.

Myth: “Chinese biotech companies are still copying Western drugs, focusing on generics or modest biosimilars.”

Reality: China is now actively developing and pioneering cutting-edge innovation in advanced biologics, next-gen cancer therapies and gene editing.

The “copycat” narrative is outdated, but it’s stubbornly stuck. Historically, China’s pharma sector did rely heavily on generics, as it built up regulatory and manufacturing capacity. But the landscape today is dramatically different. In the past decade, Chinese biotech firms are now genuinely innovating, actively and rigorously developing highly sophisticated biologics and setting global benchmarks.

Earlier, I already mentioned Akeso’s bispecific and HuidaGene’s gene-editing therapies. In the field of CART-T, personalised cancer treatments that require complex engineering and manufacturing, Chinese firms are also leading. The biotech company CARsgen Therapeutics has produced promising Phase 2 outcomes for clinical trials in stomach cancer solid tumours (a notoriously difficult field).

What has enabled these leaps? Talent, infrastructure, and regulatory reform have all played roles. Capable Chinese scientists may have returned from top Western institutions, but China’s domestic research ecosystem has matured fast, and many of the best lab minds are now fully home-grown. China’s vast patient pool also allows for faster enrolment and more efficient clinical trials, and its regulatory landscape has accelerated so quickly that it is now setting standards and templates for other countries to follow. Chinese firms are increasingly designing trials with international endpoints, often registering as multi-regional clinical trials to align with global regulators.

The upward trend is only set to continue. China’s National Development and Reform Commission recently announced a 1 trillion RMB National Venture Capital Fund to support and propel deep innovation and technological advancement—and biotech is included in this umbrella. The recent Two Sessions further emphasised biotech as one of China’s “new quality productive forces” (新质生产力), enabling it to access serious capital: R&D tax breaks, IP protection, preferential procurement and venture channels that were once reserved and exclusive for other national assets.

Why it matters:

For industry leaders: Must view China not just as an opportunity but as a key partner and competitor in therapeutic innovation. R&D strategies simply must adapt to this new reality.

For investors: Track China’s biotech not just for opportunity, but for where it’s gaining ground—especially in emerging markets. Competitive pressure is rising fast, not just in developing countries, but in Western markets too.

For policymakers: Protective policies need to be balanced with engagement, to avoid losing access to critical innovation pathways that impact the global innovation landscape. Excluding China risks missing critical innovation while weakening global coordination.

For researchers: A mindset shift is overdue. Chinese institutions are now scientific peers, often leading in trial execution, data infrastructure and translational research. Collaboration requires openness, shared credit and mutual respect.

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3. China isn’t cheaper. The West is just more expensive.

Myth: “China’s biotech gains come from cutting corners on ethics, oversight or scientific quality.”

Reality: Many of China’s advantages stem from structural reforms, not shortcuts. Meanwhile, Western trial systems are bogged down by inflated costs and redundancy.

In terms of costs, comparing biotech to generative AI may actually be rather apt. DeepSeek wasn’t just a technical achievement for China. it was a pricing shock for the world. In biotech, China is also showing that high-quality clinical trials can be run faster and cheaper, than we could have ever imagined, and without compromising on quality.

China’s clinical research environment has moved quickly to align its trial processes with global standards. China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), has been learning fast from regulators such as the US FDA, UK MHRA, EMA and others, and since it joined the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) in 2017, it has adopted ICH-GCP protocols, revamped trial governance and cut unnecessary bureaucratic drag.

Apart from speed and quality, digital platforms in China have made trial participation more accessible and data collection more integrated. Patient recruitment is easier and often cheaper. Platforms like JD Health and DXY have been used to improve recruitment, remote monitoring, and trial communication, streamlining access across a vast and diverse population.

While processes, data transparency and ethics in China’s research ecosystem still warrant scrutiny, regulators in the US and EU have no choice but to accept Chinese trial data — especially when studies adhere to global protocols. China has doubled global commercial clinical trials since 2018 to now account for an impressive 18% of the global total. In contrast, the European Economic Area has seen disappointing declines in trial activity, associated with comparatively slower site start-up times and persistent recruitment bottlenecks. In developing countries, China is increasingly becoming a reference point, and countries across Southeast Asia and Latin America are already learning from China’s model.

I saw this transformation firsthand during my time as Head of Health for the UK government in China, where we worked with the UK MHRA regulators to deliver regulatory training programmes for China’s NMPA counterparts. At first, the sessions followed the expected format: UK trainers, Chinese trainees. But over time, that dynamic began to shift, and the exchange became more equal. By the end, Chinese regulators were confidently stepping forward to share their own best practices, no longer listening in the audience, but commanding the stage.

Why it matters:

For industry leaders: China is showing that trials can be faster, more scalable, and still meet high standards. Just as Deepseek forced OpenAI to take some good hard reflections, global biotech companies should review their own regulators and operational teams to adopt lessons where appropriate.

For investors: Should look more closely at the structural efficiencies driving China’s clinical acceleration — and reassess how those conditions affect risk, ROI, and exit timelines in both China and as well as their own (now slower-moving) Western markets.

For policymakers: Consolidated ethics reviews, defined regulatory timelines and tech-enabled recruitment can improve trial speed without lowering standards. Policymakers should stop dismissing China’s frameworks as behind, and start engaging properly — developing countries are already doing so.

For researchers: China’s evolving clinical research environment offers opportunities for faster data generation and broader patient access. But collaboration requires nuance: ethical standards, data sharing agreements, and study design must be carefully negotiated.

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4. Working in China means adapting to China.

Myth: “Foreign biotech can enter China on their own terms.”

Reality: Domestic innovation will almost always have structural advantages, so success requires aligning with China’s systems, priorities and ways of working.

China's vast population and high disease burdens make for seemingly rich data pools that continue to entice those looking in from the outside. The opportunities are significant for the biotech sector, but foreign actors often misunderstand how to engage. Whether you're a multinational company, a global health agency, or a research institute, acting independently or exporting external frameworks rarely works. Regulatory complexities, bureaucratic hurdles and fierce competition from well-supported domestic actors create a challenging landscape. Local institutions have inherent advantages, most importantly policy prioritisation and government support, as well as easier cultural alignment.

In China, relationships matter. Trust, reputation and alignment with local interests shape everything — from access to clinical sites and patient data, to regulatory timelines and hospital partnerships. Those who prioritise relationships first and profit second will be best positioned to navigate complexity and thrive.

But the type of relationship most appropriate for each scenario may differ according to needs, expectations and aims. What works for one project may stall in another if the structure isn’t well-matched to goals or expectations. A licensing deal may offer quick entry but no strategic depth. An acquisition may give control but provoke friction. Success depends not just on forming partnerships, but choosing the right form of partnership.

Whether in industry, academia, public health or regulatory engagement, the same principle holds for foreign stakeholders: success in China comes from building real relationships, embedding locally, and aligning with broader national goals, not applying external models as-is:

1. Equity-based partnerships

These include acquisitions, joint ventures and co-funding arrangements — common in industry but increasingly explored by research institutions and regional governments. e.g. GSK’s acquisition of Zhifei, Merck’s JV with Kelun-Biotech.
Pros: Long-term commitment and strategic alignment are clearer, shared risk and access to local insights.
Cons: Integration challenges slow things down, high costs, cultural friction and risk of misaligned strategy.

2. Project-based collaborations

Time-limited partnerships structured around a defined product, study or policy objective. Most common for global health or academic research e.g. the Gates Foundation’s work on vaccines in China.
Pros: Speed and focus and cost-efficiency. Risk is often shared.
Cons: Misaligned timelines, unclear IP/data ownership, dependence on local execution and fading interest post-project/lack of sustainable impact.

3. Capacity-building and exchange

Including regulatory training, joint fellowships, or R&D infrastructure co-development. Often used between government agencies or academic institutions.
Pros: Built trust, regulatory alignment, shared institutional learning.
Cons: Imbalanced power dynamics (e.g., donor–recipient framing) can undermine mutual trust.

4. Licensing and knowledge transfer

Used by foreign firms or institutions looking to scale through local partners.
Pros: Low barrier to entry, minimal resource requirement.
Cons: Limited influence and local insight, dependency on partner compliance, may miss deeper learning opportunities.

5. Embedded presence

Setting up local research labs, offices, or embedded teams within Chinese organisations.
Pros: Credibility, long-term integration, real understanding of local dynamics.
Cons: High costs, slow to scale, vulnerable to policy shifts, longer ROI timelines.

Choosing the right model requires clarity on goals, timelines and a readiness to adapt. What works for tech licensing may not work for clinical research, and what works today may not hold even in 12 month’s time.

Why it matters:

For industry Leaders: Quick wins don’t exist in China. Long-term strategic relationships with local partners, regulatory stakeholders and government actors are essential. Need to adapt the right collaboration model to specifically fit company strategy and aims.

For investors: Must appreciate the depth of relationship-building required for success in China. Investments that explicitly prioritise guanxi — fostering genuine local partnerships — will deliver better long-term returns than purely transactional approaches.

For policymakers: Bilateral and multilateral science diplomacy and regulatory cooperation need structures that support two-way learning and institutional trust. Focus less on symbolic agreements and more on building models that scale well, share risk and respect political sensitivities on both sides.

For researchers: It’s important to cultivate strong professional networks with Chinese counterparts. Academic collaborations require clarity on data use, authorship, funding, and institutional alignment, and all delivered with mutual respect for expertise and a willingness to both give and take.

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So where does this leave us?

The global biotech landscape is shifting fast. Chinese biotech are no longer just serving the domestic market. Now equipped with a growing confidence in their own innovative capabilities, they’re looking hungrily outward to target consumers in developing countries, and increasingly ready to compete with Western pharmaceutical giants on their home turf.

But scientific breakthroughs are only the beginning. Many promising molecules coming out of China today — whether in oncology, immunotherapy or rare diseases —are still in early or preclinical stages. Even though China is fast and affordable, the leap from discovery to delivery is still extremely long and extremely expensive. Value and risk accumulate with each step along the full research pipeline. Many companies still lack expertise in late-stage trials, pharmacovigilance systems and market access strategies, and crucially, post-market surveillance.

At the same time, geopolitical tensions continue to complicate collaboration on the global stage. The US’s proposed Biosecure Act would require American firms to cut ties with Chinese biotech partners. Trade restrictions, tariffs, and broader mistrust in the US–China relationship risk slowing not just cooperation, but innovation itself. That would be a tragedy. If these divisions deepen, the consequences will not just be commercial. The resulting slower pipelines, duplicated efforts and delays to access will mean reduced treatments for diseases.

As a doctor, I care most about what it all means for patients. Like DeepSeek in generative AI, China’s rise in biotech is forcing the world to move faster and think harder. That pressure can feel uncomfortable. But just like with DeepSeek, the world can choose to react with fear — or learn, adapt and raise the bar.

The purpose of biotech and innovation isn’t dominance. Faster trials, smarter regulation and more affordable therapies are life-saving, life-extending gifts, in order to get the best treatments to the patients that need them the most.

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🩺 This is a Vital Signs post: a series of essential explainers from China Health Pulse, where I lay out the key contexts and trends shaping health in China today.

If you enjoyed reading, please subscribe, share and comment. As always, I’d love to hear from you.

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Next time, in part 2 of 2 on Health and the Two Sessions, I will be analysing the drivers behind the key trends at China’s biggest political event of the year, and what they mean for those living and working on health and China.