Big pharma is sourcing assets from China biotech as $440 billion of drugs lose patents through 2032, Goldman Sachs says. Salveen Richter, the bank’s lead US biotech analyst, says Chinese rivals could shorten product cycles at Western drugmakers.
Yet China’s five-year pharma plan, published Sept. 18, targets at least 25% of global first-in-class drugs by 2030. Those are medicines that work through a new mechanism rather than improving an existing drug.
Is China Biotech a Supplier or a Rival for Big Pharma?
AstraZeneca agreed last week to invest $2 billion in US-listed Summit Therapeutics. Summit licenses its lead cancer drug from China’s Akeso.
Overseas licensing deals for Chinese drugs have reached more than $120 billion in total value this year, Xinhua reported. That is up 36% from a year earlier.
Richter, however, told CNBC that most Chinese work still builds better versions of existing drugs, which could flood the market.
Meanwhile, she says Chinese developers are aiming for a foothold in obesity, the market behind Eli Lilly’s stock rally.
Richter says acquirers could pay smaller premiums over market value for biotechs outside China.
“I do think that best-in-class first-in-class innovation around the world will still get rewarded.”
Salveen Richter, lead US biotech analyst at Goldman Sachs, speaking to CNBC
Will China’s Drug Data Hold Up in Western Patients?
Richter points to Summit’s HARMONi-3 lung cancer trial against Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda. She says it will test whether Chinese data holds in Western patients.
Summit expects the next data from squamous tumors, a lung cancer subtype, in the second half of 2026.
An April interim analysis delivered no early win, and Summit shares opened 24% lower the next day.
Richter says Chinese drugmakers already partnered with Western firms may become the next multinationals. She would follow them as biotech investment opportunities.
Historically a supplier of drug ingredients, China now describes its industry as shifting toward exporting new medicines. Under the plan, 50 pharmaceutical companies would top 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in annual revenue by 2030, Xinhua reported.
