The numbers behind China’s pharma rise

China has become a growing source of new drug candidates for big pharmaceutical companies. Sun Fanyue / AFP

For decades, China was known for producing cheap copycat drugs and ingredients for large pharmaceutical firms. But it now has its own cutting-edge drug industry, creating opportunities and competition for big pharma players like Swiss firms Roche and Novartis.

China’s biopharmaceutical industry has long been characterised by its fast-follower nature and large-scale manufacturing base – that is, replicating proven therapies, producing generic medicines at scale, and supplying lower-margin inputs into global pharmaceutical supply chains.

Innovation was predominantly driven by US and European firms. But this has changed in the last decade. Drugs discovered by Chinese companies, such as cancer therapy ivonescimab are beatingExternal link Western-developed blockbusters in head-to-head trials. Others like blood cancer treatment zanubrutinib (Brukinsa) developed by BeOne Medicines are achieving annual sales in the single-digit billions.

“In just three years, China’s biopharmaceutical industry rose from near irrelevance to dominance,” a US congressional commission reportExternal link on the future of US-China biotechnology competition noted last year.

How did China evolve into a global pharmaceutical player and where is the world’s second-largest economy making its mark on the industry? We looked at the data.

$1.03 trillion – Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D

That’s how much China spent on research and development in 2024 when adjusted for purchasing power parity – edging out the US for the first time, which spent $1.01 trillion (CHF820 billion), accordingExternal link to the OECD. China’s spending was 12.3% more than the previous year.

Massive investment in research and development over the last decade has paid off in both quantity and quality of scientific output. China publishes more papers in the world’s most prestigious scientific journals than other countries, according to the Nature IndexExternal link.

It also has a steady supply of science and technology graduates from top-tier domestic universities and has lured back many foreign-trained Chinese scientists with the help of financial incentives.

Biotech has been a major beneficiary of this scientific boost. The Chinese government has called out biotech as a priority sector for investment to slash import dependence and compete globally.

It has poured billions into drug manufacturing and innovation parks and clusters to. It has also used state-guided venture funds to pull in private and local government investment.

“The government put in place policies 15-20 years ago to reshape the environment for biotechs,” said Celia Deng, president of consulting firm SAI-med in Beijing. “They realised that producing cheap generics isn’t a long-term strategy and that they need to do real innovation.”

Starting in 2015, the country ushered in major regulatory reforms to align with international quality standards, speed up clinical trials and drug approvals, and encourage biotech start-ups.

31% – China’s share of drug pipeline

China’s share of the global drug development pipeline has risen from 18% in 2021 to 31% at the start of 2026, according to consulting firm CitelineExternal link.

China’s growing importance in the pipeline of new drugs is most pronounced in early-stage trials (up to phase 2). In 2015, only 8% of early-stage drug development programmes originated in China compared to 48% in the US, according to a studyExternal link led by researchers at Georgetown University. By 2024, China’s share soared to 32% and the US share fell to 37%. In the third quarter of 2025, China even surpassed the US.

Although many of these trials are run by Chinese companies, “more Western biotechs are considering doing trials in China because they can get early-stage data for much less money”, said Dusan Kladar, co-founder of advisory firm Vision Lifesciences.

In cancer, China is remaking the treatment landscape. According to GlobalData’s Clinical Trials IntelligenceExternal link, China was responsible for 25% of global oncology trials with a start date in 2016, rising to 31% by 2018. By 2025, this share surged to 55%. The US, which represented 27% of global oncology trials in 2016 and 26% in 2018, declined to 14% by 2025.

One key reason for China’s emergence is its ability to launch trials faster and cheaper than anywhere else. This is thanks to expedited regulatory processes along with many trial sites and a large patient population to draw from for trials.

Consulting firm McKinseyExternal link estimates patient enrolment for clinical trials in China is two to five times faster, depending on the therapy type.

19% – China’s share of global biopharma companies

Some 19% of all research-based biopharma firms are now headquartered China, compared with 13% in 2023, according to CitelineExternal link. The share of companies from European countries, including Switzerland, had fallen to 17% in January 2026, compared with 25% three years ago.

More Chinese companies rival Western companies when it comes to research and development. Hengrui Pharmaceuticals has at least 178 drugs in development, giving it the 12^th-largest pipeline of any pharma company, according to Citeline. Swiss pharma giant Roche had the largest pipeline of any company with 262 drugs under development.

In 2026, two Chinese drug companies – Hengrui, and BeOne Medicines (formerly BeiGene) – also ranked among the top 30 pharmaceutical companies for innovation in the UK-based boutique consultancy IDEA pharma’s Innovation and Invention IndexExternal link. BeOne, which was founded in Beijing and now has its global headquarters in Basel, has three US FDA-approved products on the market.

The surge in Chinese pharma firms in the last few years is in part due to an influx of financing. Between 2019 and 2024, Chinese biopharmaExternal link firms attracted $26 billion in private equity and venture capital. More than 80 went public (predominantly Hong Kong and Shanghai’s STAR Market), according to McKinsey.

This was thanks to a rule change in 2018 that allowed pre-revenue biotechs to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Over 265 biotech and healthcare companies are now listedExternal link on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with a combined market cap currently exceeding HK$5 trillion (CHF520 billion).

$137 billion – the value of out-licensing deals

In 2025, Chinese firms struck out-licensing deals with global pharma firms worth potentially $137 billion, according to data provider PharmCube and ReutersExternal link. That’s more than double the amount ($52 billion) in 2024 and nearly a tenfold increase on 2021’s total of $13.9 billion. The total number of deals also soared from ten in 2016 to 186 in 2025.

Prior to 2020, most Chinese pharma licensing deals, which grant a company rights to produce or sell a drug for a fee, were of global pharma firms looking for a local partner to sell their drugs in the Chinese market.

But the tide has turned. Now Western firms are in-licensing innovation from China to refill pipelines as a record number of drugs go off patent in the next decade and Chinese companies seek commercial opportunities abroad.

In 2024, major pharmaceutical companies in-licensed 31% of their innovative pipeline assets from China, according to a report by investment bankExternal link Stifel. By deal countExternal link, roughly half of all large pharma licence deals in the first half of 2026 were sourced from China.

“Fifteen years ago, Chinese biotechs were copying successful projects from the West,” said Kladar. “But now you can see more innovation coming out of China that you can’t find anywhere else.”

Individual deal size has also been on the rise. This year, UK-based AstraZeneca signed a deal with CSPC Pharmaceutical Group in Hebei province for several obesity drug candidates. The deal is worth up to $18.5 billion, one of the largest this year.

28.7% – the share of drugs launched in China before the rest of the world

The share of drugs launched first in China grew from 3.3% in 2004 to 28.7% in 2024, according to a studyExternal link by the US-based National Health Council. Over that same period the share of first launches in the US fell from 45.9% to 37.8% and in Europe from 26.2% to 8.5%.

Chinese companies are a growing source of global first launches. In 2024, 31% of first launches were developed by US-headquartered companies, 20.7% by European companies, and 26.2% by Chinese companies. This is in stark contrast to 2004 when only 1.7% of drugs that had a first launch were traced back to Chinese firms.

China’s growing attractiveness for first launches is due to streamlined approval and reimbursement processes as the government seeks to bring more innovative drugs to Chinese patients

In June, China approvedExternal link the world’s first solid tumour CAR-T therapy, which was developed by Shanghai-based CARsgen Therapeutics. Up to now the technology, which engineers a patient’s own T cells to fight cancer, has been used only for blood cancers. 

China has expanded commercial health insurance coverage for innovative drugs while extracting steep price concessions from drug companies to get included on the list. The total numberExternal link of Western and Chinese patented medicines on the list has grown from 1,535 in 2000 to 3,253 in 2025.  

Edited by Nerys Avery/vm/ts