Can the West Keep Up? China Biotech | From Fast Follower to First in Class

Session Focus

Mecklai opened with news from the previous Friday: the Chinese government announced an ambitious five-year plan for biotech development.

Two targets stood out. Within five years, 25 percent of newly approved drug molecules globally would be first-in-class molecules from China. And a goal of over $500 billion in revenue from drugs developed in China.

He put the second figure in context: the top 20 US biopharma companies generate $800 billion in sales combined. He called it a moonshot.

The panel’s purpose was to examine what factors China could employ to reach those goals.

From Fast Follower to First in Class

Hui Feng traced the shift through his own career. Educated at Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1997 to 2003, he returned to Shanghai in 2013 and joined Junshi as chief operating officer, where he started China’s first PD-1 program.

He was precise about the mindset then. In 2013, before Keytruda’s 2014 US approval, the aim was to be a fast follower, learning from Genentech and Regeneron with the ambition of becoming the Amgen of China.

What has changed is that companies are no longer satisfied with following. He described the current period as the DeepSeek moment of China biotech, with companies pursuing genuinely first-in-class compounds.

His evidence was transaction structure rather than rhetoric. Recent deals include Innovent with Takeda and BMS transactions, and what he considers genuinely new in 2026 is that the conversation has moved from single-asset deals to platform deals.

Three Waves of Change

Judith Li described Lilly Asia Ventures as one of the first funds established in the ecosystem, frankly before the ecosystem was ready. When it began operating in 2008, innovation accounted for only about 5 percent of total sales in a market dominated by traditional Chinese medicine and off-patent drugs.

She traced the waves the portfolio reflects.

The first was in China for China. Drugs taken for granted in the US took time to be approved in China, so companies were custom-built around that gap. The platforms were good, but the targets were ones the West considered older.

The second was talent. Capable entrepreneurs returned in increasing numbers, rising roughly 30 percent per year.

The third was a capital boom and bust. In 2018 the Hong Kong Exchange allowed pre-revenue listing for the first time, followed shortly by the Shanghai STAR Board, and capital flooded in, vastly expanding the aperture for these companies.

She argued the bust mattered as much as the boom. Without infinite capital, companies had to hone pipelines toward what would be globally interesting.

Her framing of why that shift was so consequential: for any given target, China represents on average about 10 percent of global potential. A globally interesting asset increases the addressable market tenfold, so overnight the same work becomes ten times more valuable.

Today China is anticipated to contribute roughly a third of global innovation, measured by molecules entering human clinical trials.

She was explicit that she does not view this as adversarial. There are strengths in the West and strengths in the East, and it should be a partnership.

Using AI Differently

Weian Zhao described Aureka Biotechnologies’ goal as rewriting biological and therapeutic discovery through agentic AI.

The problem identified three years ago was that wet lab experimental processes are extremely inefficient and were simply not built for AI. The company had to invent new AI infrastructure capable of labeling AI-designed antibody sequences for function at scale, now studying millions to tens of millions of molecules per experiment.

That closes the recursive loop between design and function, unlocking biology including previously undruggable targets such as GPCRs and channels, and antibody-specific designs not achievable through traditional methods.

His account of the Chinese advantage was operational: resources and efficiency allowing movement from idea to development candidate quickly. The combination he described as distinctive is a foundation model, private functional data, and the capability to move from idea to development candidate to phase one very quickly.

The Infrastructure Nobody Counts

Ng noted that discussions of China focus on speed, cost and patients, while consistently forgetting infrastructure and government support.

Jianguo Michael Yin described BioBAY, China’s largest bio park, established in 2007 and now 19 years old, a period matching the transition of the Chinese biotech industry itself.

He traced the tenant mix as a proxy for the industry. Before 2010, most clients were generic drug companies. From 2010, biosimilar companies arrived. Gradually came cell therapy, ADCs, siRNA and mRNA, with mRNA companies incorporated at BioBAY before COVID, at a point when it took some time to understand the applications.

His headline figure, sourced to the Ministry of Commerce: of all license-out deals from China last year, and again through August this year, BioBAY companies accounted for 40 percent of all molecules licensed out.

Key Takeaways

1. China’s five-year plan targets 25 percent of new first-in-class approvals and over $500 billion in revenue, against $800 billion for the top 20 US biopharma companies combined.

2. The ambition shifted from becoming the Amgen of China to developing first-in-class compounds, described as a DeepSeek moment.

3. Deal structure signals the change, moving from single-asset licensing to platform transactions.

4. The capital bust mattered as much as the boom, forcing companies to build globally relevant pipelines.

5. Global relevance multiplies a target’s value tenfold, since China alone represents roughly 10 percent of global potential.

6. China is projected to contribute about a third of global innovation measured by molecules entering trials.

7. One science park accounts for 40 percent of all Chinese license-out molecules, per Ministry of Commerce data.